


When It Rains

by Adiaphory



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Abuse, Abused Sam, Addicted Sam, Alternate Universe, Dead Parents, Dean is a responsible adult, Domestic Violence, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, F/M, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, No Spoilers, Panic Attacks, Sam Winchester and Mental Health Issues, Sam is a fuckup, Sick Sam Winchester, Verbal Abuse, Whump, Worried Dean, but from withdrawal, forcing Sam to detox, learning to cope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-05-06 02:33:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 33,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5399579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adiaphory/pseuds/Adiaphory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being absent from Dean's life, Sam shows up on his doorstep. Dean would have been glad to see his brother, had it not been for all the bruises and cuts adorning him. Now Sam has a new hobby to forget the pain his time without his protective big brother had caused.</p>
<p>[Also posted to Fanfiction.net]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a one-shot on fanfiction.net and evolved into Sam being an abused drug addict. They grow up so fast.

It was raining when Sam showed up on Dean’s doorstep with a black eye and a bag by his side. The poor man was drenched, as if he’d been out in this weather for longer than it took to get in and out of a car.

“Sam,” Dean gasped, taking in the pathetic sight of his brother. “What the hell happened to you?”

The younger man broke eye contact, instead opting to look at a dying potted plant beside the doorframe. “Can I come in?”

Dean frowned at the obvious side-stepping of the question but moved aside anyway, figuring he would get it out of his brother that night whether or not he was in or outside of the house. Once Sam was inside, Dean locked the door and took a moment to run a hand through his short hair and clear his head. What the hell had happened to his little brother?

Sam had been distant the past couple of months, which cut deep for the brothers. They had been inseparable even into their teens and suddenly college-graduate Sam began to drift. Slowly, as time passed, Sam would ignore calls, texts, emails, and anything Dean would do to contact him.

But here Sam was, shivering and hurt. Dean wanted a name and he wanted an explanation now.

Sam had already scurried off to the bathroom to change into dryer clothes before Dean could pounce. He went to start some coffee and waited with the cups on the couch. Sam took a while, longer than changing should be—like a girl picking between twenty different outfits. After Dean had finished a cup of his coffee, Sam emerged into the open. The bruises and cuts on his skin were visible now and Dean felt the anger swelling in his chest.

Dean stood abruptly from his seat, causing his brother to flinch, and demanded, “Who the hell did this to you? Sammy, _answer me!_ ”

He, however, caught the way Sam winced and took a step back, looking defensive and scared. It started to dawn on Dean that he may already know why Sam was here, bruised and battered, rather than at his own home.

“Sammy, did…” Dean’s voice weakened. “Did _Ruby_ do this to you?”

He knew he hit a nerve when Sam reached a hand to wipe at his eye.

* * *

Across the kitchen table was Dean’s First Aid kit, laid out messily and taking up half the space. Sam was hunched over, trying to become smaller, with one arm laid out among the bandages and alcohol wipes. He hissed when Dean wiped at a few scattered cuts on his arm and felt vulnerable when the bandages were placed over top.

Dean did what he could to take care of the open wounds but paused when it came to the bruises. He couldn’t do much for his brother’s bruised collar bone or the little nail-shaped marks around parts of his arm and neck. He settled on worrying only for the black eye and retrieved a washcloth with some ice wrapped up. Sam didn’t like holding the cold mass to his face and winced at the pain.

They were quiet. It was hard to talk with the tension in the air. Dean wanted to ask what happened, how long this was going on, and find out how his brother was doing besides the wounds. It was clear how broken Sam was, and he let it sit in his throat to save his brother more pain.

“You can take my bed,” Dean said, breaking the silence. “You’re too tall for the couch.”

Sam didn’t break a smile like Dean had hoped. “Thanks.”

Then the ringing began. Sam’s phone was quickly pulled from his pocket and Dean took note of the cracked screen. An image of Ruby popped up and Dean snatched the phone when Sam went to answer it.

“No,” he said firmly. “I’m not letting that bitch talk to you and cause more damage.”

“You’re not Dad,” Sam said, a hint of defiance in his voice. “She’s my girlfriend and I’ll make my own decisions!”

“Your _ex_ ,” Dean said sharply. “You’re not staying with some psycho bitch who likes using you as a punching bag!”

Sam just turned his head and tried to hide the hurt expression on his face and the sudden tears threatening to fall. He hated himself. He was a man and _he_ was the abused one! He knows woman can abuse, too, but it was so unreal. Even when Ruby was throwing glasses and plates at him, it felt surreal. She loved him, she always said she loved him, and she hurts him. She likes to hurt him.

Dean turned the phone off and pocketed it for himself. “I’m not exposing you to your abuser and that’s that,” he said through clenched jaw.

“Men aren’t supposed to be abused,” Sam said weakly, staring at the floor and flexing his hand to bring back the sting of the cuts up his arm. Dean felt stabs of sympathy in his gut at how humiliated and betrayed Sam must have felt.

* * *

That night was a struggle. Sam couldn’t handle being alone; the images of the past day and the months leading up to it flashed in his head.

_“Sam,” she said sweetly. “I want to spend more time with you. I feel like I come second, after your brother.”_

_“Dean calls you too much. What grown men are so codependent? It’s sad.”_

_“Your hair is almost longer than mine. Soon you’ll be the woman here, haha.”_

_“Do you always have to talk about your dead mom? Jesus Christ, you’re a broken record!”_

_“You’re lucky to have me. No one else would put up with your whining!”_

_“I swear to God, if I catch you talking to that brother of yours one more time, you’ll regret it.”_

_“You’re a pathetic fucking orphan! I’m the only family you’ve got so you better start fucking appreciating it!”_

It caused aches deep within Sam’s stomach and he felt like he’d get sick. The abuse started as small pinches, to slaps, to hitting, to throwing things at him. _Ruby was just stressed, Sam was needy, Dean needed to stop intruding on his life with these weekly calls._

But he knew better. He knew what was happening and was too scared to try to do anything. She had done a number on him, making him believe he really was needy. He was convinced he was unlovable and she was his only chance at happiness— _as long as he stopped fucking everything up._

* * *

Dean could hear light sobbing from his spot on the couch and couldn’t ignore it any longer. The blanket over his legs fell to the floor and he got up, pausing to listen if the sobbing would stop. It didn’t, so he approached the door. He didn’t bother to knock and instead invited himself in, knowing Sam needed him but would only push him away.

Dean sat on the bed and Sam’s breathing became irregular as he tried to stop the sobs. They didn’t talk at all, it wouldn’t have done anything to help at such a raw time. Instead, Dean laid a hand gently onto Sam’s shoulder and rubbed. The touch was comforting and Sam craved more, having only been handled roughly since Ruby caught him reading an email from Dean weeks before.

To Dean’s surprise, Sam sat up and weakly wrapped his arms around him. It was an embrace he needed so desperately. As Sam sat there, leaning into his brother’s protection, he almost felt okay.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn’t unusual for Sam to be more on the quiet side, to sit deep in thought while Dean would do his own thing. It was different now, much more unsettling. The young man would sit in silence, stare at nothing, and completely zone out. He didn’t care when Dean caught him checking out or when Dean gave him tired sighs.

The phone had been hidden since Dean caught him with it after the first couple days together. Sam was like a deer caught in headlights when Dean walked in on him in the kitchen, at nearly four in the morning, with the cracked device in his hands. The drawer he found it in hadn’t been closed yet, meaning Dean caught him as soon as he discovered it.

Since then the phone was hidden behind a few spare napkins in the glove compartment of the Impala. He knew Sam wouldn’t find it there—Sam refused to even leave the house. He was like a scared puppy, only lashing out when he felt cornered by Dean.

Dean wasn’t used to dealing with abuse victims. He couldn’t, for the life of him, understand why Sam was blaming himself for what happened. He didn’t see why Sam didn’t leave Ruby the first time she hurt him. He couldn’t fathom why Sam was so desperate to go back and see her.

He didn’t know if he should ride this out with Sam—the sleepless nights, the breakdowns, the sickness replacing appetite—or if all he was doing was rubbing salt in the wounds Ruby created.

* * *

While Dean worked, Sam would aimlessly wander the house to stretch his legs. He always stopped by the mantle where there were framed family pictures. He would pause to look at the old family portrait of his late parents. Why couldn’t he have this with Ruby? Mom and Dad were always happy—why couldn’t he have that? It hurt to see and he walked away, knowing he would make the same stop the next time he was too restless to sit still.

He tried to eat and be strong for his brother, to prove to himself he’s not as weak and pathetic as he was made to believe, but he struggled when it came time. The piece of bread he tried to eat sat hard in his stomach and came up minutes later when his mind inevitably drifted back to _her_.

He didn’t have it in him to pretend he could be strong. Sam chose, instead, to stay on the bathroom floor, surrounded by the stench of his bile on the floor. He’d clean it up later and he’d make himself look presentable before Dean came home. For now, he would sit. He would sit and he would feel the sting of the acid in his throat.

* * *

Sam certainly wasn’t making things any easier. It hurt Dean to come home to find his baby brother had fallen asleep on the bathroom floor looking like a bullied high school kid. He made to clean up the dried mess around his brother’s feet. When he was done he tried to wipe Sam’s chin, waking the boy in the process, making him redden and rush to leave.

Sam was dizzy and his eyelids were heavy and burned. He didn’t make it far before Dean caught up with him and made him stop, turning him around to stand face-to-face.

“Sammy,” Dean said, voice strained. “Oh, Sammy…”

He didn’t know what to say or what to do. He just forced his rigid brother into a hug until it was reciprocated. Sam held on tightly. They broke apart, Dean leading Sam to the living room and handing him a few different remote controls in varying shades of grey.

“TV, box, DVD player,” he said, pointing to each one. “Put something on. I’ll go get dinner.”

Sam was ready to protest but gave in when Dean gave him a rare pleading look. He flicked the TV on, glad for some small reprieve from his mind. He tried to ignore the lingering memories of sitting with Ruby on the couch when they had first moved in together, flipping channels, avoiding their unpacked boxes that littered every corner of the house.

Dean sat with him, gently handing over a half-filled bowl of soup. Heat rose to Sam’s neck when he realized Dean had, in fact, noticed his (obvious) poor eating habits since arrival. They sat together, mindlessly watching whatever came on the TV. Dean’s deep chuckles helped Sam to remember where he was. That he was with his brother. _That he was safe._

He shouldn’t have to feel safe away from her… He had at least a foot on her and quite a few pounds in muscle. How could he let—

“Sammy, eyes on me,” Dean’s voice cut through his thoughts. Sam could feel a moisture building in his eyes he hadn’t known about. “I’m here.”

Sam nodded and wiped the tears on his sleeve. Dean reached over, pulling his brother to his side. He would get his baby brother through this if it meant doing this every day for the next year. He wasn’t going to let Sam suffer like this.

* * *

Sam felt better with Dean sleeping next to him. He would panic when he was alone, waking up sore and alone. He’d be confused, wondering where Ruby was and if she was about to come back, fucked up and mad. The lingering pain made Sam think he, too, was some level of fucked up and freshly battered.

Now he woke up and saw his brother. It tethered him to reality and reminded him he was out, he was with family, Dean wouldn’t hurt him. The itches would set in when he realized he was here with Dean. Ruby was nowhere to be found and neither was the stash.

How Sam hated himself for letting his life come to this. He knew what he’d do in the morning, once Dean was gone for work. Dean would be happy to know Sam was out of the house and taking a walk out in the open air and in the warm sun.

Dean never has to know Sam was aching for his next hit. In his mind he knew it was wrong to manipulate Dean like this and let him think he was just an abused, fragile man. Dean would be so disgusted to know he was harboring some drug-addicted, abused, _freak_.

And like he promised himself, Sam got ready for a day out and about as soon as Dean was gone. He showered, minding the cuts that weren’t healed yet, and found a fresh pair of clothes to change into. With a quick check to make sure he did, in fact, have his wallet, Sam was out the door.

The walk did feel nice. Sam used to like taking morning jogs and walking to the farmer’s market, neither of which he was able to do since…

The sun felt good. That’s all that mattered. The sun, the warmth, and the incessant shaking of his hands. Thank the lord he could hide his withdrawal from Dean, who probably assumed every little thing was another side effect of the abuse. The guilt Sam would normally feel for deceiving his brother, even by accident, was long forgotten. Everything was becoming overridden by the need, need, _need_ to get more relief.

* * *

There it was: The House. The decent-enough brick house he had seen so many times already. He approached the front door and gave it a knock before stepping back and anxiously shifting his weight from foot to foot. The door creaked open and he looked down at the shorter man with dark eyes and an uneasy aura to him.

“Sam Winchester,” the man recalled. “I see you’ve come alone. Shame, really.”

Sam bit his lip. “Can I come in or not, Crowley?”

Crowley, his dealer, smirked. “But of course. Nice black eye, Sam.”

Sam grimaced but slid past the shorter man and into the house. It was nicer on the inside, which was curious to Sam, seeing as Crowley was a dealer and would seem to be a target for robberies. There seemed to be one rule in the streets: _no one messed with Crowley_. There were rumors and there were well-known stories by the local stoners; anyone who tried to pull one over on Crowley either went missing or suffered a rather traumatizing accident.

The mere thought of the man he was working with made a chill run down Sam’s spine.

“What will it be this time?” Crowley asked, taking a seat on a red couch, motioning for Sam to do the same. “More Oxy?”

“Yeah,” Sam said with hesitance. He passed some money over and resisted the urge to punch that smug look off of Crowley’s fat little face. He knew better than to lose his cool, especially now. He waited, foot taping the floor, as Crowley left to retrieve the much-desired drugs.

When the dealer returned, he had an extra few pills lose in his hand. Sam was ready to question it when Crowley laid it down on the table instead. “Think of this as a… _gift_. I saw Ruby recently and it would seem you two don’t run together anymore. Shame, really. I liked it when she used to have to drag you to me.”

Jaw clenched, Sam closed his eyes. “Make your point, Crowley.”

“It’s a welcome gift to my newest, _hopefully loyal_ , customer,” he smiled. “I’d hate to send such a nice young man out without something to get him going.”

With that, the older man began to crush up the pills right there on the table. Sam swallowed hard, a nervousness replacing the need. He had only just began doing harder drugs with Ruby before they split up, and even then he didn’t snort it, he chewed! It made him nervous and feel guilty.

Crowley made neat lines of the powder and motioned for Sam to take the first hit. Dean would never know, no one else would ever know. He needed this, he was damaged, _he needed this_. Before Sam knew it, he was leaning back against the couch, coughing lightly into his fist, feeling the high he had been craving. The pain was gone. He was relaxed.

And Dean would be so disappointed.


	3. Chapter 3

The euphoria of the high was beyond amazing and Sam knew he needed to chase this feeling. He was still on Crowley’s couch, leaned back, feeling the drug lighten him. He wiped the white dust from his nose and gave a lazy smile to his dealer as a ‘thank you.’

He took the orange bottle he paid for, smiling to himself at the sound of the pills tapping around inside, and pocketed it before leaving the house. It was a poor idea to try to walk home high off his ass, but who cares? He certainly didn’t.

There was a time when Sam didn’t have any interest in drugs. When he thought he would never even smoke pot because he didn’t like the idea of losing any kind of control or awareness, perfectly aware of how hypocritical that was seeing as he _did_ drink. There was a time when pot seemed like it would never happen, then when it seemed like he’d never do more than that, then when he was sure he would absolutely never inject anything.

And he hadn’t, but that wasn’t the biggest victory out there. To _not_ mainline drugs was never where his original bar was set.

* * *

He didn’t remember how long he’d been back at Dean’s house or how he even got there—he hadn’t done Oxy long enough to know if that was a side-effect or if it was something else wrong with his memory. But _fuck_ if the couch wasn’t comfier now that he was melting into it.

He was long asleep when Dean caught up with him and returned home. The older brother was happy to see Sam had showered and changed his clothes, and he didn’t appear to have been crying or irritating his scratches or bruises.

It brought hope to Dean that his baby brother was getting better. He couldn’t stand seeing his brother suffer. Yet, while he was glad to see Sam napping in the open and not hidden away, he was worried. Something tugged at his gut but he couldn’t place the fear on anything but the general unease of the situation.

He decided he would take Sam to Ruby’s apartment when he deemed his brother well enough to see her again. They would need to collect Sam’s things to make it a cleaner break between the two exes.

Dean looked down, attention on his sighing brother. Sam kept his eyes closed and slowly stretched out each limb as he eased into being awake. He was startled when his eyes popped open to see his brother standing there, watching him.

Sam was ready to shoot upright but tensed up instead, instantly remembering the bottle in his jacket pocket. He couldn’t move too suddenly—the last thing he needed was for Dean to hear the rattling or to see the bottle fall on the floor. Then Dean would give him some disappointed look, soon replaced by anger and screaming when he discovers it was illegal narcotics rather than some therapist-prescribed happy pills.

“Morning, Sammy,” Dean said gruffly, taking a seat by Sam’s limited leg space.

“Dean,” Sam replied, pushing back the jitters and smoothing his pocket to be sure the pills were safe. “What time is it?”

“Past five, sleeping beauty.”

At least he had a nice nap, Sam told himself. “Uh, how was work?”

“It was alright,” Dean replied. He debated bringing up going to the apartment but decided it was still too early. “How are you doing, Sammy?”

Sam clenched his jaw and did his best not to give himself away by breaking eye contact. He felt tense but tried to appear relaxed. He would do anything not to appear suspicious.  “I’m… fine. My eye stings a little, but I’ve had worse.”

Dean looked just past Sam’s bruised face. “That’s good. I’m glad you’re doing better.”

“Me too, Dean.”

The bottle in his pocket never felt heavier than it did right then.

* * *

Dinner that night was celebrated with some beer. Dean said it was because of the wonderful day at work leaving him in a good mood, but Sam knew it was to celebrate his own alleged improvement. He didn’t want to ruin his brother’s high spirits and sipped from his own bottle despite how sick alcohol made him feel these days.

It didn’t go unnoticed by Dean how little Sam had eaten, but he ignored it for now. He’d address it if Sam kept it up. For now he would blame it on recent events and slow recovery time for the abused.

Sam had felt sickly trying to keep up the act of improvement. He promised himself a treat that night once Dean was asleep and he was safe to lock the door and chew another pill… or crush up a line. The thought of snorting it again was bitterly exciting to his tired mind.

That night he was all too eager to get to bed and wait until he could hear the soft snoring of his brother on the couch. He wasn’t sure why he was so eager for more, whether it be addiction, habit, or the need to destroy himself in some way now that no one else was there to do it. Maybe it was all of the above. He didn’t care at the moment.

* * *

It was his first night at Dean’s house with his new pills and he didn’t want to get caught straight away. Sam chose to chew this time, disappointed that he was being ‘responsible’ enough not to be loud and crush it up.

When he was done and had the orange bottle hidden away in his bag, he laid still on the bed. Shadows danced on the ceiling from the cars passing by his window. He felt the numbness set in and the euphoria dancing behind his eyes. Here he was: safe, warm, high, and with his brother.

Sam missed feeling stray hairs against his shoulder and the warmth of Ruby curling into his side. Their time together wasn’t always badness and yelling and hitting. There were days when she was all hugs and kisses. She would play with his hair or kiss him sweetly before reminding him how much she loved him.

Sometimes they would go out together to buy an ounce of pot together from one of the neighborhood kids and they’d spend their entire weekend baked and watching movies. Sam forgot why he was always so stubborn about going with Ruby to get Oxy or coke from Crowley. Why did he even care if they did the harder stuff? Why did he used to be so goody-goody?

It’s no wonder Ruby got so mad. He could smoke from her bong but he wouldn’t do a simple line of cocaine? Why did he have to be so difficult? Ruby wouldn’t have to hit him if he just—

Sam coughed and sat up, uncomfortably numb. He knew he needed to stop reminiscing about her and he needed to stop this kind of thinking and self-blame…

But it was right, wasn’t it?

She never forced him to start that life. She never held him down and pushed those pills past his lips. She never asked him to be so fucking impossible to deal with when it came to upgrading to a better dealer, to _Crowley_. She wasn’t the one who always came home late, who always spent his time talking to his brother, who smoked the last bowl when she always liked having the last hit.

Dean would be so disappointed if he could hear everything Sam was telling himself. Sam knew he couldn’t be realistically blamed for the abuse inflicted on him… but in his mind he was guilty. He was the bad guy. It was his fault and he deserved it all.

* * *

It was lucky to find the local high school burnouts just a few streets from Dean’s house. If Sam was going to make the Oxy last while avoiding sobriety, he would need something to stretch it out. Alcohol would have been great to drink while he was high but he couldn’t risk the memories making him sick. The last thing he needed was to be sick, high, and constantly in Dean’s sight.

It was a school day so _of course_ the local seventeen-year-old dealer was home, listening to loud rap music and walking around the yard with his phone and portable speaker. He was taken off guard to see Sam, a six-foot-four-inch giant with more muscles than the local football team, approaching him. The teenage drug dealer was noticeably surprised to see Sam when his usual buyers were other kids from his school or some older neighbors who agreed not to report him to the police for a discount.

Times like now Sam appreciated his outward appearance and how his height alone was intimidating. The kid, a lanky white boy with some scattered acne, took a step back before trying to act like the intimidating thug he was online.

“W-what do you want, dawg?” he asked, voice ready to crack.

Sam rolled his eyes and swiped some loose hair behind his ear. “Yeah, alright, Snoop. Here’s how this is going to go: I have money and you’re a loser with no real job. I won’t rob you and beat you senseless if you can go get an ounce _right now_ before I get mad.”

He hoped he sounded convincing and that his words matched his exterior. Sam had no intention of hurting this kid but he was in a poor mood and just wanted to go home and forget who he was. The kid took the bait and stumbled over his untied shoes before running inside the house. The teen returned minutes later with a kitchen plastic bag filled with greenish, fuzzy looking miniature trees.

“Seriously?” Sam asked, inspecting the bag. “This looks like it’s half shake. Are you trying to fuck me?”

The kid’s chin trembled and he gulped. “It’s all I gave left, I swear! There’s a school dance coming up and all my buddies cleaned me out last week for their dates!”

Sam stared through the kid, counting in his head, wanting to remain the same scary figure in case he needed more from the teen later on.

“Fine.” He threw a wad of money over and turned around to walk home, pressing the bag inside of his jacket. He grinned to himself. He still had the magic touch—that is, his ability to lie through his teeth and pretend to be someone else.

He remembered the first time he bought weed for Ruby. How nervous he was, looking around in all directions, unable to stand still. Muttering what he wanted, stuttering when asked questions. Now look at him—hustling a punk kid just to avoid waiting an extra ten minutes and asserting dominance.

He was going to have an excellent smoke break.


	4. Chapter 4

The lighter left on the coffee table was the first thing to set off a warning alarm in the back of Dean’s brain. Neither he nor his brother smoked—he didn’t even own candles. Dean had his own lighter, a metal lighter that was refillable. He even kept an extra little canteen of gas for it under the kitchen sink. He knew Sam had one like it, likely left at Ruby’s after they split. What worried Dean was that it was some plastic lighter, like the kinds his work buddies bought in packs of three and had out during smoke breaks. It was _new_.

There was a weird smell to the house but Dean wasn’t sure what it was, whether it was tobacco or something weird Sam brought from the outside world, like a potted flower or whatever crap he was into.

“Sammy!” He called out, ready to ask Sam what was going on. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew something was off about his brother. Sam was acting so relaxed and carefree half the time—the rest of the time he was moody and just wasn’t himself.

The tall form of Sam emerged from the bedroom, hair disheveled from the nap he had been taking. He rubbed his eyes and approached his brother. “What?”

“Care to explain to me why my house smells like pot?”

Sam couldn’t stop his reaction, the widening of his eyes and raising eyebrows a dead giveaway to his shock of being caught. He felt embarrassment to be caught so quickly and he felt shame, like he had been too stupid to hide the one drug every other teenager snuck into their bedrooms to smoke at night.

“Uh,” he muttered, trying to think of an excuse or something to say that would make Dean less pissed. “Pot?”

Dean’s face was hard and his eyes narrowed. “Don’t give me that crap! You look like you were caught with your hand in the freaking cookie jar!”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Sam bit back, anxiety flooding back into his system. He forgot why he tried to sneak around Dean now that he was faced with the enraged man. “It’s _weed_ , not heroin!”

That only seemed to only further anger Dean. “Jesus Christ, Sam! I don’t care what it is, you can’t be doing this shit!”

Then it hit Sam: the perfect excuse. The same excuse. It would be consistent and it wouldn’t entirely be a lie. He took a breath and tried to compose himself to seem solemn. “It helps me… not to think about _her_.”

Dean’s face softened a fraction.

“I know it’s not okay to do, and I feel bad… but it’s hard to sit here alone all day. I hear a noise, like the air kicking on, and I don’t know. I forget I’m not with her and I panic, like, ‘why is she home early? Is she mad?’ I’m sorry, Dean.”

It was the puppy dog eyes that finally broke Dean. He turned his head away and crinkled his nose before saying, “It’s okay, Sammy. Just… try not to do it again.”

Sam was too overjoyed by his small personal victory of tricking Dean to even consider how far he’d fallen to manipulate his brother into allowing his drug abuse to happen. It didn’t register with the younger brother that he was becoming a liar.

He still had most of the ounce left over and chose not to smoke it, nor would he throw it out. It wouldn’t be hard at all to sell it to some idiot newbies for way more than it was worth. The money would go toward his preferred medication.

* * *

Sam couldn’t eat much of his dinner that night. He felt nauseous, which made no sense to him—there was no beer to remind him and he had assumed he would be able to eat more than enough after smoking earlier that day.

Across the table he was being watched closely by his brother, who was on his second servings of food while Sam could barely eat a third of his own plate.  
“I thought you were supposed to have the munchies,” Dean said with a touch of sass.

Sam glanced at his uneaten food and to his brother while breathing as deeply as he could in a futile attempt to calm his stomach. “Shut up. Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

He couldn’t stand being near the scent of food much longer after that and left the table to lay down in Dean’s bed. It was uncomfortable with his upset stomach and the messy, lumpy blanket and bed sheets. It was uncomfortably warm and awkward to lie in with the uneven masses of the old, bumpy blanket under his legs.

His heart hurt. Sam felt uneasy and like he was about to get in trouble for something. At first he thought he was worried Dean would find his pills and kick him out. The more he thought about it the more he realized he couldn’t care less if Dean found the pills—he didn’t care if he was kicked out so much as he cared about being alone.

Like when he left Ruby’s apartment.

“Damn it,” he whispered to himself, cringing his face into the pillow. The uneasy feeling intensified to a throbbing pain in his chest and he knew why he was feeling terrible. While the drugs were a fun way to detach from the situation and his brother provided safe place to stay, he couldn’t ignore the problem forever.

Sam was still in love with Ruby. He knew he was messed up and it was her fault in one way or another. It was plain as day that it’s wrong to hurt someone and it’s wrong to stay when you’re being hurt—the finer details didn’t matter to him. He loved her and now he can’t be near her.

She hurt him but the good times balanced it out. He could talk to her and they could work it out! They could figure out their issues and fix it! It can be done and there’s no reason they couldn’t still be together!

Sam rushed to get out of the bed and ignored the head rush from the movement. He stopped inches from the door, hand braced on the wall, eyes screwed shut. His vision was filtered with black stars edging in from the corners.

“Head rush,” he groaned to no one.

It soon passed and he continued to the door and out the room where he was met with the sight of Dean folding some laundry on the couch, the plates from dinner still on the kitchen table in the next room. His brother’s face was filled with suspicious confusion at the sight of Sam struggling to leave the house.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Sam averted his eyes and tried to get to the front door and run out before Dean could ruin his life again. He was grabbed roughly by the arm as he tried to pass by the house and jerked to a stop, almost falling on his ass in the process. His stomach turned and he just barely kept his dinner down as he braced himself against Dean.

“Sam,” Dean said, tone stiff. “Answer me.”

“Let go of me,” was all Sam could say. He was struggling to separate himself from his captor. He couldn’t tell Dean, Dean wouldn’t understand, Dean would stop him!

“Look at me—damn it, Sam! Look at me!”

Dean grabbed Sam’s other arm and forced him to stand face-to-face. Sam’s own eyes were shut tightly and he gave up struggling, turning limp in his brother’s hold. He tentatively opened his eyes, regretting doing so when all he saw was Dean’s furrowed brows and darkening green eyes.

“You’re not leaving.”

Sam swallowed hard and felt heat rising in his face. _Great_ , he thought. He was seconds away from breaking. Again. Being an emotional wreck wasn’t nearly as glamorous as the movies made it out to be.

Dean didn’t know what to say or if he should start accusing or comforting. He chose to lead his brother to the couch to sit down and, maybe, talk it out. He hated talking but he wasn’t going to let his baby brother run back to the psycho bitch.

“You were doing good,” Dean said. “What happened?”

Sam wouldn’t look him in the eyes or even in his direction. His head was down, face clouded with shame. “I don’t know.”

“You were going to see her, weren’t you?”

Sam winced and Dean had his answer. “I miss her.”

“How?” Dean couldn’t stop the irritation that one notion gave him. “Man, she really messed you up!”

The angry response he expected never came. Sam didn’t snap or try to defend her this time. He just sat there and accepted his brother’s cold words like a punishment he felt he deserved. He was too tired to cry but that didn’t stop the stinging in his eyes.

Now that Sam was turning his head away, elbows on his knees to make himself smaller, Dean saw what he did. He made it worse. Guilt rose in his chest and he cleared his throat, stalling for a second more of time. Dean was afraid words would make it even worse—he had a habit of speaking bluntly and without consideration of delicate moments. So instead he reached an unsure arm out and placed a warm hand on his brother’s back.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a low voice.

Sam didn’t respond.

* * *

It became a habit of Sam’s to take long baths or partake in other leisurely activities while Dean was at work. It meant he would run out of his fix faster but he didn’t care as long as he still had money for more. He wasn’t about to give up the only thing that made him feel better, even if the lost rational part of his mind knew how dangerous it was getting.

The grey counter of the bathroom sink was covered with a small line of crushed Oxy, neatly lined up with the razor Sam stole from the cabinet. It seemed a shame to only get the one hit that day but he ignored it, thanking his lucky stars he even had it. The water was running to fill the bathtub and he was already undressed, standing completely naked by his near-empty orange bottle and the powder line.

Sam leaned forward awkwardly to reach his nose to the counter, holding a finger to his nose as he inhaled the line smoothly. His hands braced the countertop and he shut his eyes for a moment to adjust to the high setting in. When he was ready he looked up into the bathroom mirror and took in his own appearance.

His hair was getting longer, bangs grown out past his nose. His face seemed to be thinning out and making his cheeks hollow. His body still held its natural tan and muscles, though it was becoming clear his eating habits was beginning to take a toll on his body.

The sight didn’t please him and he left to take his well-earned warm bath. He eased one foot at a time into the water after turning the faucet off. He already felt like he was on top of the world from the high and the soothing water sent an innocent pleasure through his skin.

Images danced across his imagination as skewed memories of his last home. Altered visions of Ruby and him being happy, making love, turning their apartment into their home. Then he saw Crowley and those magic pills and the red couch. Sam smiled at it all and sunk deeper into the water as his mood improved.

* * *

Bobby was a close family friend to the Winchesters and also Dean’s boss. With no one else to talk to, Dean sat with Bobby at lunch and spilled his guts about what was going on the past few weeks. He admitted to being too harsh at times as well as his fears of going home to find it empty.

“One minute he’s fine and the next he’s trying to go back to Ruby,” Dean said tiredly. “I don’t get it! Why would he do that?”

Bobby tapped a finger on his cup and hummed. “The boy needs time.”

“He snuck pot into the house. Since when does Sam smoke pot? I bet that bitch did that to him! She got my Sammy acting like some rebellious teenager!”

Bobby rolled his eyes. “For Christ’s sake, Dean. _He’s a grown man_. You can’t blame his mistakes on peer pressure or whatever it is you got in your head.”

“What am I supposed to do? Huh? He’s a freakin’ mess and he spends all day doing god knows what!”

“Give him time. You can’t really help him if he _doesn’t_ want it and you need to accept that it might take longer than any of us would like for Sam to get back to normal.”

The idea was a hard one to embrace. Dean held his head in his hands and took a shaky breath. He was going to get Sam’s stuff back and speed up this process in any way he could—Sam was _not_ going back to Ruby and Sam was going to get better, damn it! When he was off of work he had a goal in his mind: go to Ruby’s, rescue Sam’s stuff, and try not to be arrested for homicide along the way.


	5. Chapter 5

The smirk on Ruby’s face when she saw Dean Winchester at her door was one worthy of Satan himself. It made him so incredibly enraged to see her standing there like the smug bitch she was when Sam was at home and probably silently suffering to memories of her.

Her smirk faded and she took up an irritated expression. “What do you want?”

“I want my brother’s stuff,” Dean replied through clenched teeth.

She rolled her eyes. “Sam’s an adult now, Dean. He can come break up with me himself if he thinks he can live without me.”

Dean clenched his fist until his nails dug painfully into his palm. He probably would have punched her if he hadn’t noticed the other man sitting just a few feet away at the kitchen table.

“You move on fast,” he commented, eyes on the dark-haired man.

“He’s nobody,” Ruby muttered.

The man chuckled. “Nobody? Is that who I am now?” He stood up and approached Dean, not bothering to extend his hand like he usually would. “Name’s Crowley. I’m a friend.”

Dean said nothing but his clenched jaw told Crowley all he needed to know.

“How do you know Sam?”

Dean’s expression faltered. He took a step forward and surveyed the room quickly, spotting no other possible enemies or useable weapons. “He’s my brother. Now how the fuck do _you_ know him?”

Crowley chuckled again and Dean was reaching his limit for this utter and absolute nonsense. “I’m a friend of his. Ruby introduced us, actually.”

Ruby glared at the English man before returning her attention to the Winchester at the door. “Aren’t you here for his stuff? It’s all packed up. I didn’t want his trash taking up space.”

She pointed back to her bedroom, mentioning the box to be there and at the end of the bed. Dean brushed past her and into the room, looking over everything to be sure she wasn’t trying to hide something of Sam’s for herself. He couldn’t spot anything that was obviously not hers and stopped at the box to open it and inspect it.

Inside were few items—Sam didn’t own much and most of what he did have was shared with Ruby or destroyed. It did have the only pictures Sam owned of his late parents and his diploma from high school and his degree from college. Most of it was nerdy books or little items he would pick up on trips with Dean.

Dean closed the box and lifted it up into one arm before leaving the apartment without exchanging any more words or looks. As far as he was concerned Ruby and Crowley could fall off the face of the earth. In fact, he would be pleased for that to happen.

He loaded the box into the back of the Impala and started the engine. Now he had one less thing to do, replaced by a new concern: who the hell is Crowley and why does he know Sam?

* * *

He returned to his house and, against his better judgement, reached into the glovebox for Sam’s long dead phone. Those words rung in his head: _Sam’s an adult_. It seemed wrong to have to watch out for Sam in such obvious ways—keeping him away from his bullies. Keeping him from running back to what caused him so much pain. But that was Dean’s life: ever since he was young he was watching out for his brother. He would intimidate bullies at school, go without lunch to pay for some boring field trip to the local museum, and even stole his dad’s car to pick up Sam from a sleepover that was cancelled.

It stung to know how his baby brother, who he spent most of his life protecting in some way or another, was now desperate to lose his protection. He was desperate to be hurt again. Worst of all: he was so mixed up that he truly believed Dean was the cause of his current confusion and pain.

Dean placed the cracked cell phone on top of the box from Ruby’s and locked his car. He debated going back and re-hiding the phone but shook his head. It was time to give it back and, as Charlie would have said, to allow Sam to make his own mistakes and feel trusted… even if Dean felt Sam could be trusted as much as a parolee.

It was a nuisance to balance the box on his hip as he fished out his keys to unlock the front door. When he entered he was surprised to see Sam, fully awake, drinking from a glass of water in the living area. Sam had an eyebrow quirked at the sight of the box before he recognized the phone sitting on top.

Dean approached him and placed the items on the coffee table. He gave a small nod when he saw Sam hesitantly reach for the phone and stop.

“Just… don’t do anything stupid,” Dean said gruffly. “And, uh, here’s your stuff.” He motioned to the box.

“My stuff?”

Sam opened the top tabs and took in the sight of his things. He was glad to have them back, it was a comfort to see them again. For weeks he had been surviving on what he had brought in his backpack when he left Ruby on that particularly bad night. It had all been clothes, the little that Sam actually owned, and nothing personal but his phone that he’d had confiscated. The relief to have his material possessions back faded when he put together _why_ he had them.

“Did you see Ruby?”

Dean winced. “Yeah, Sam. I did.”

Sam felt his hands quiver and he clenched his fists in an attempt to prevent his anger making him shake. He turned his head, jaw clenched, and paced away before turning back. “You had no right. I didn’t ask you to do that, Dean!”

Dean kept a straight face despite his own competing indignation. “Yeah, well, I didn’t ask you to show up at my door drenched and beaten!”

Sam was taken aback.

“This is how it’s gonna be, Sammy. You came to me for help. I’m helping whether you like it or not! I’m not going to let my _brother_ go out and get himself hurt even more! I should have been there to protect you the first time and I’m not going to let there be a second time, you hear me? You don’t know what’s wrong and right so I’m telling you; don’t go back to her. Don’t talk to her. You’re going to avoid her and see her for the bitch she is or so help me!”

Dean hadn’t realized when he began yelling until he heard a small noise from Sam’s throat. His brother no longer looked mad at him, but scared. Sam had been backing away during the tirade and was still shaking—though it wasn’t from heated rage. His eyes were wide and Dean knew he had fucked up once again.

“Sammy,” he finally said, voice calmer.

Sam stood still, afraid of an attack. His eyes darted around and stopped on everything within Dean’s reach that could be thrown. He swallowed hard and looked back to his older brother.

Dean was washed over with guilt. “I didn’t mean to yell, Sammy.”

Sam didn’t say anything. The situation was a lost cause and trying to convince Sam he wasn’t the enemy— _and wasn’t going to do what Ruby did_ —felt impossible. Instead, Dean took a breath and turned back to the door. The best thing he could do was leave—that way he wasn’t there to scare Sam more.

“I’m… I’m going out for a bit.”

The door shut quietly behind the elder brother but Sam didn’t feel like he could breathe again until he heard the engine of the Impala kicking on. A hand found its way to his chest, feeling the quickened beating of his heart against his palm.

All interest in his phone or box was gone. Sam slid to the floor, knees pulled to his chest. He stared forward and closed his eyes hard, trying to shake the way he felt. He knew, deep down, Dean didn’t mean to scare him. He hesitated even coming to Dean that night knowing how his brother’s temper got.

Sam reached the fingers of his right hand to his left palm and slowly dragged the nails across the soft skin. He stopped to dig them in, craving reality to come back. He began to disassociate when Dean’s voice changed from irritation to yelling. He knew the feeling well—sometimes he had a similar feeling when he was high. He felt light, outside of his own body, floating. He lost reality, where he was, how to feel like himself and not a ghost.

It was only a few more deepening scratches across his palm before he could look up from the ground and feel like his soul had returned to his body and he was Sam again. He took a shuddering breath before retreating back to Dean’s bedroom.

Sam haphazardly flung the last remaining pills from the orange bottle across the nightstand beside Dean’s bed. He couldn’t find the will to care that he would likely damage the wood when he slammed his drinking glass from the night before down on the pills. He was frantically trying to crush them and felt beyond stupid halfway through the process when he realized it would have been easier to chew them or even swallow them whole.

There was a startling noise behind him. Sam jumped and turned around, eyes wide and focused on the closed bedroom door. He could hear a car engine shutting off and the front door opening.

Shit, shit, shit, Dean was already back?! Sam felt heavy waves of nausea and anxiety smash into him when he sees the clearly unlocked doorknob to the bedroom. Dean would surely come straight to the room to see him and he would surely open up to find his brother standing there with a few broken up OxyContins and a deer-in-headlights expression.

Sam did the only thing he could think of to cover his tracks—he brushed the powder and pill bits into his hand, off the nightstand, and quickly thrust it all into his mouth. He swallowed what he could and sat on the bed, trying his best to look natural and not guilty.

“Sam?” He heard Dean’s voice call. There was a light knock on the door before his brother stepped in. “We should talk.”

Sam swallowed back his fears and clenched his hands tight to alleviate a fraction of his worries.

“Look, man. It was wrong of me to just take off like that… But you gotta understand, I don’t know what I’m doing here. I thought leaving might make you feel better but I couldn’t stop thinking of how _scared_ you looked.” Dean reached out to place his hand on Sam’s shoulder, silently grateful that his brother didn’t flinch away like he had feared. “This is a safe place and I’m not going to ever hurt you like _she_ did. I’m your brother and I’m going to protect you no matter what, okay? I’m… sorry. I’m sorry I scared you, Sammy.”

Sam only nodded. He felt almost relieved.

Dean nodded back and tried to conceal how awkward he felt giving into “chick-flick moments.” He had called Charlie as he drove away, needing to get advice he knew Bobby would be just as clueless about. He hadn’t been gone more than fifteen minutes, thankfully

_“You need to be there, Dean. He’s still recovering from an abusive relationship and the last thing he needs is his own brother adding to his stress.”_

There wasn’t much else to do with Sam not speaking, so Dean left with the intent to call Charlie back. With the room finally empty again, Sam laid back onto the bed with a content sigh. The high had set in.

* * *

“What do you mean _no_?” Sam hissed into his cellphone, anxiously pacing Dean’s bedroom. “I have money! I can pay!”

_“Can you, Moose?”_ The cocky voice of Crowley’s filled Sam’s ears. _“Because last I heard, you’re living with your brother now and the last thing I need is that macho twit barging into my fine establishment. He seems the type to take out his anger for_ you _on_ me _.”_

“Don’t do this,” Sam said, his tone a mixture of anger and growing desperation. “I just ran out and I—I—”

_“—Am a junkie? Does that fit?”_

“Shut your fucking mouth.”

_“I wouldn’t take that tone if I were you. You do want more, don’t you?”_

Sam groaned and stopped his movement to tap his forehead against the wall. “Crowley, stop messing around. Will you fucking sell to me or not?”

There was a chuckle at the other end. _“I always love when a customer officially becomes loyal. Come by tomorrow and we can make a deal. Keep this between you and me or I’ll make sure no dealer this side of the country will ever do business with a Winchester again.”_


	6. Chapter 6

When Sam had arrived at Crowley’s he found that he had been deceived. The house was empty—no cars in the driveway, no lights on inside, nothing. He had walked all the way there to get his fix and the bastard dealer couldn’t even manage to be home? He was trying to make Sam miserable! He wanted Sam to suffer!

So Sam turned around and dialed the man’s number as he took his first steps away from the disappointing house.

_Ring… Ring… Ring…_

“Crowley, you son of a bitch, you better answer.”

_Ring… Ring… “Moose, I’m busy.”_

“We had an appointment!”

There were a few unintelligible grunts on the other end. _“I’m with another client. A house call.”_

Sam kicked a nearby piece of trash. He was about to scream something into the phone to show the Brit he made the wrong call in screwing him over. That was, until he heard another familiar voice in the background.

“Are you with… _Ruby_?”

_“Very astute. Now, if you don’t mind—”_

“Put her on.”

_“I’m not—this is a work phone, not your lifeline to lost love!”_

“Put. Her. On.”

Crowley groaned but handed the phone over nonetheless. Sam’s heart quickened in pace as he heard the shuffling and light breaths of his ex as she took over the call. _“Sam?”_

* * *

Dean went out for lunch to meet with Charlie and Bobby. The way Sam acted was concerning and unsettling. First he’s fine, then he’s a mess, then he’s just _numb_. Charlie and Bobby had been good friends of both the Winchesters and could give Dean some insight from a friend and nearly-family point of view.

The restaurant was a small one close to Dean’s work, allowing him and Bobby to carpool over and make the most of their break. Charlie was already seated and waiting for the men to arrive.

It was uncomfortable for Dean to talk about feelings and worries, but this was _Sam_. Sam was more important than his inability to speak like an adult about emotional problems.

There was an unspoken agreement to talk as much as they could before their food arrived to get the ball rolling. Fortunately for Dean, Charlie was the most open of the three and began the talk and lead it until Dean could handle talking just as openly.

“What’s going on with Sam lately?” Charlie asked, tucking a stray lock of red hair behind her ear.

Dean hesitated for a moment and let his eyes wander to the nerdy Star Trek T-shirt Charlie wore. “I don’t even know anymore. I thought I knew what was going on but he keeps surprising me.”

Bobby leaned forward, taking his hat off to swipe sweat from his brow. “I’ve known the boy since he was in diapers. What’s he doing that’s so surprising?”

Dean leaned back in his seat. “He’s just… not acting like himself, you know? I got a little… _angry_ … the other night and Sam started freaking out.”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “I wonder why.”

Dean shot her a glare before replying, “It’s surprising because just before that he was yelling at me for bringing him his stuff back from his ex-psycho’s place! First he’s mad I saw Ru-bitch and then he’s panicking because I yelled at him like she probably did. He misses her, he doesn’t miss her, he comes to me for help, he screams he never asked for it. What am I supposed to do with that?”

The table fell silent as the group tried to think around Sam’s actions and why he was being so moody. None of the group had been abused themselves and struggled to enter the same mindset as their suffering friend.

Something lit up in Bobby’s eyes and he leaned inward, bringing himself closer to Dean and Charlie, as if ready to whisper something scandalous. “What does Sam do during the day?”

Dean rubbed his neck. “I don’t know. He’s sleeping half the time when I come home. He barely even eats dinner, no idea if he bothers with breakfast or lunch.”

“Didn’t you say he snuck some weed into your house when you were at work one day?”

Charlie gasped lightly, more shocked at the idea of their innocent little Sam even considering smoking the devil’s lettuce than by the actual drug itself. _“Sam smokes pot?_ ”

“No,” Dean said sternly. “I made him get rid of it when he made my house reek of it.”

Bobby groaned in irritation before bringing attention back to himself. “Listen to me, boy. You need to suck it up and go have an adult conversation with your brother. What you’re telling us just sounds like he’s reacting to everything _like an abused man would_. If your brother is resorting to smoking weed then he’s probably in more pain than he lets on. This _is_ Sam we’re talking about.”

“He’s right, Dean,” Charlie agreed. “I know Sam seems to be acting weird to you but it’s common for people leaving abusive relationships to flip-flop and act out. Go home today and talk to him. Preferably without more yelling.”

* * *

The room was spinning and Sam was struggling to keep his eyes open. He wasn’t strong enough, he couldn’t do what Dean demanded of him. He could hear Ruby and Crowley talking across the room but he didn’t listen to the words, only the sounds and how every little noise was like clashing symphonies.

Something slapped his cheek and he stirred, opening his eyes, alerted more by the sound than the contact of skin-on-skin. Crowley was hovering over him with a smug face while Ruby appeared behind him.

“Having a good time there, Moose?”

Sam giggled. “Yeah,” he slurred back.

Ruby was suddenly next to him, stroking his long hair and watching his face. She hadn’t seen him since he left that night and had missed that big, carefree smile. There was something about his grins that lit up the room.

“Wanna go lay down, Sam?” she asked, her breath tickling his ear. He gulped and lazily moved his eyes across the room, noticing Crowley was on his way out.

He nodded and allowed her to help him to his clumsy feet. It felt like a journey walking back to the bedroom he had known so well, yet when he was sitting down on the mattress it was like only a second of time had passed.

Sam laid back, snuggling his face into the old pillows that smelled like Ruby’s shampoo and perfumes. He felt like he finally found the lost piece of the puzzle being here again. Every smell, every touch, every little feeling sent innocent pleasures through his body and deep to the bones. When he opened his eyes he saw Ruby’s, only inches away. They were lying together again and it felt _amazing_.

“I’m sorry I left,” he managed to say. “I was scared.”

Ruby leaned in closer and kissed his nose.

“I didn’t want to be gone.”

She raked her fingers through his hair.

“I love you.”

* * *

When Sam regained consciousness he was hit with the smells of pot and faded perfumes. He opened his eyes and saw he had come down from the intense high of earlier. His state of undress and modesty hidden by bedsheets alone was his hint that _everything_ he remembered was real.

Dean would be so pissed if he knew Sam had sex with Ruby.

Clothes were strewn across the room and Sam reached down to the floor for his abandoned boxers. Once he had more than a sheet to hide his shame, he retrieved each piece of clothing and put it all back on. It was surreal to be back here and so _calm_.

He left the bedroom to find Ruby sitting on the couch with assorted drugs littering the coffee table. Sam raised a brow before slowly approaching and stopping just a few feet short.

“You’re selling now?”

Ruby didn’t look up when she replied, “Yeah.”

“Guess that explains why Crowley made a house call.”

Ruby shook loose hair from her face. “What’s happening, Sam?”

The question struck him as both obvious and terrifying. He had been dying to see her again since he left and he had missed her dearly… but now he felt the anxiety trickle back in, the fear she would get mad and yell or break something. He wanted her so bad but didn’t know if she would even want him back. Did he want to be back?

“I don’t know.” Sam took a seat beside the intimidating woman and watched as she weighed and stored grams of marijuana or count baggies of assorted pills.

“You know, Sammy,” Ruby batted her long eyelashes and leaned back to come much too close to Sam’s body. “Dealers get a cut of the money… and the goods.”

He leaned in, feeling a craving for something more. “Yeah?”

“We can _feel real_ good all the time.”

“I’d like that.”

Their lips collided and they fell back onto the couch as hands worked up and down each other’s’ bodies. A heat within them began to grow and grow until Ruby pulled back and left Sam feeling suddenly cold and needy.

“All is forgiven but I need you to do just one thing for me, baby.”

He took a shaky breath and nodded quickly. “Yeah, sure, anything. What do you need?”

A bottle was placed into Sam’s hand but the pills didn’t look like the ones he had come to know.

“I just need someone to sample the goods. If Crowley is trying to screw me I need to know _now_.”

Sam’s eyes were glued to the bottle in his hand and the different pills inside. Warm fear bloomed in his chest at the thought of doing more drugs, drugs he didn’t even know the names of, _drugs that could be literally anything._

The lid fell to the floor as he shook a random pill to his palm. “Anything for you.”

* * *

The plan was set for an intervention of sorts. Charlie was off work and waited at the shop until Dean and Bobby finished up their work. Together they drove off to Dean’s house, fully ready to confront Sam in every way they could think of. They were going to be firm, kind, understanding, _everything!_

They pulled into the driveway and Dean cut the engine. They each left the Impala and marched up the steps of the porch and to the door.

“Sammy!” Dean called into the house, hoping Sam was awake. “Sammy, come out here!” There was no sign of movement anywhere in the house. Dean sighed and turned to Bobby and Charlie. “What’d I say? Asleep half the time.”

The guests followed as Dean approached the bedroom door and knocked loudly on it to rouse his brother. There was still no sound. When he opened the door and saw the room to be just as empty as the rest of the house, his heart dropped.

Where was Sam? Why wasn’t he home?

Dean frantically ran into the room, checking for Sam’s phone, a note, or some kind of reason for his brother to be gone. The bed was unmade and Sam’s box and backpack were still inside the room and against the wall.

“Sam knows not to just leave,” Dean said more to himself than his company. “He’s—he’d at least leave a friggin’ note! He had his phone, he could have texted me!”

The growing terror in Dean’s voice didn’t go unnoticed.

“He doesn’t have a car to go anywhere! Where the hell…” Dean ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He paced a minute, trying to figure out where his brother had run to or if Sam had mentioned plans for the day.

Sam never leaves the house! Why was he gone now? Did he call someone? Is he just out taking a walk? Why does he choose now to give his big brother a heart attack?

The frustration kept building alongside the worry and Dean blew up and kicked the nightstand by the bed as hard as he could. Charlie flinched at the violence but Bobby just rolled his eyes.

“Get it together, Dean. Sam’s probably just out and—”

“What’s that?” Charlie’s voice cut through the tension-filled room and cut off Bobby. The men stopped, about to ask what she was talking about when they saw it.

An orange bottle had rolled out from under the bed, the sudden movement of the furniture knocking it loose from its hiding place. Dean bent down and grabbed the foreign object, noting the way the label was torn off and unreadable.

“Sam’s not on anything,” he said numbly.

Bobby placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Apparently he is.”


	7. Chapter 7

Sam wasn’t picking up his phone and Dean was close to having a breakdown. Everything was falling apart and he couldn’t help but blame himself for every problem in Sam’s life thus far. If he was a better brother, if he could have been there, maybe Sam wouldn’t have ended up like this.

There were conflicting pangs of blind rage between the long draws of guilt: he was going to kill Ruby and he was going to make it long and slow. He was sure she was the cause of all of this. He had never been surer of anything in his life before.

“We need to find Sam **_now_** ,” Dean practically hissed back to the redheads waiting for him to get his thoughts collected. He jerked his head toward the door and the three ran back to the car. There was barely time to even close the doors before Dean was backing out of the driveway and speeding down the road.

He blew through four stop signs before he got a slap to the arm by Bobby. “Are you trying to get us pulled over, you idjit? We can’t find Sam if we’re in jail!”

Obviously they wouldn’t go to jail but Dean needed to hear something to stop his reckless driving for a few minutes. They had no idea what Sam was doing, who he was with, or where he even was. All they had to go on was that they now knew Sam was doing some kind of drug and had been missing Ruby. Their only lead was Ruby and Dean knew that was the only one they needed.

The car skidded as Dean turned the wheel sharply to turn into the parking lot of the apartment complex he remembered to be Sam’s from before. He only visited Sam twice when he was deep into the abusive life, once to help move and once to crash for the night after a rough breakup.

The apprehension Sam had to let his heartbroken brother stay the night was understandable now. Unknown to Dean, it had been a good night until he showed up. Ruby was less than pleased to hear he would be sleeping on the couch. She never liked Dean, even at the beginning, and she took it all out on Sam the next day. He didn’t get to eat until nearly midnight when he was _begging_ for just some bread. She liked it when she felt in control.

Dean gripped the wheel tighter and haphazardly pulled into a spot, absolutely crooked and over the line. The engine was shut off instantly and the group was scrambling out of the car and following Dean up the sets of stairs and past dozens of doors.

Then he found it—the first door on the third floor, _Ruby’s apartment_. It reeked of tobacco and an underlying scent of marijuana. Rocks tumbled in Dean’s stomach and he went straight to the knob, thankful to whatever God there was that it was unlocked.

Charlie reached out and tapped Dean’s shoulder. “Be careful,” she said in a hushed voice.

Dean didn’t know what he was supposed to be careful about but he nodded anyway and shared a look with Bobby. They flung the door open, adrenalin flowing, ready to take on an army to get to Sam.

But there was no army to take on and masked gunman to shy away from. The air was smoky and the apartment looked identical to the day he retrieved Sam’s belongings and met the creepy man named Crowley. The coffee table, however, was messy with broken up pieces of weed and some white powder next to some mismatched pills.

On the couch was the missing brother and the devil who hurt him… Dean just wasn’t expecting to see Ruby with a needle poised in her hand, centimeters from Sam’s arm, which had a tie wrapped around his bicep.

“Oh _fuck no_ ,” Dean growled. He finally caught the stoned couple’s attention and Ruby dropped the syringe to her lap and Sam recoiled slowly.

Bobby charged up behind Dean, eyes wide and face covered in disgust and worry. “What the hell— _Samuel Winchester_! I swear to God, you better not be doing what I think you’re doing!”

Dean rounded the table and pushed Ruby aside before grabbing his brother’s arms and hauling him up to stand. It was mostly dead weight in his arms and it sent terror down his spine to see his brother so limp.

Draping an arm over his own shoulder, Dean dragged the barely-there Sam across the room and to the small apartment bathroom. Sam gasped lightly at the shock of the scenery change when Dean sat him on the floor and crouched beside him.

The drugs were already working their magic and Sam was struggling to distinguish the absolute disappointment on his brother’s face. Dean sighed to himself and reached down to roughly undo the tie on his brother’s arm. He rubbed it a moment but didn’t know why.

“What did you take?” Dean’s voice jarred him for a moment. “What did she give you, Sammy?”

The voice Dean used wasn’t like before—the anger had drained and it was a soft, kid-gloved voice of apprehension and worry.

Dean slapped Sam’s face. “What did you take?!”

“I’unno,” Sam slurred back, telling mostly the truth. He knew some of what he took but he really couldn’t care less about what the other stuff had been. “Pills.”

“Did you do heroin?”

Sam turned his head back to Dean and tried to look offended. “No.”

“I saw the needle, Sam—”

“It wasn’t heroin!”

Dean turned away and shook his head. He was trying desperately to figure out what to do and if Sam was at risk right now. He didn’t know much about drugs, especially unnamed pills and shit Sam could be lying about. He didn’t know if Sam was liable to overdose or have his heart stop. He was terrified.

Charlie appeared in the bathroom’s doorway. “Dean, I think it’s time to go.”

“Sammy’s high, I don’t know if he…” he didn’t finish that thought, he didn’t want to voice his hundreds of concerns.

“He’ll be fine once we get to the car. We shouldn’t stay here much longer.”

Sam roused from his stoned stupor and eyed Charlie and Dean. “I don’t wanna go,” he said with some clarity.

“Tough, Sam,” Dean scolded. “We’re leaving.”

“I—”

Dean slapped Sam again and willed himself to not let this new anger boil over. “I don’t give a shit what you want right now, Sammy. You’re making the wrong decisions and you’re not even fucking sober. You’re leaving with us _now_. If not, you can stay, but I can’t promise there won’t be a raid because of an ‘anonymous tip.’ _Do you hear me, Sam_?”

The tone wasn’t one to mess with. It was the end-all voice of Dean. There was no getting around it and no fighting it. The idea of police was a dark fear of many stoners and, for Sam, it could mean a dangerously long time in jail and in withdrawal. Absolutely no chance at seeing Ruby or getting another hit. It would be pure _misery_.

With help from Charlie they got Sam to his feet and out of the room. Bobby was standing over the couch and turned back to nod at Dean. He had been keeping an eye on Ruby and, more likely, explaining just how bad of an idea it would be for her to ever try to speak with Sam again.

The woman sat on the couch, eyes droopy but sending death glares to everyone. Even Sam.

They left the apartment and Charlie switched out with Bobby when it was time to help Sam down the stairs and into the back of the Impala. She sat back with him, helping to keep him upright and checking him the entire ride to make sure he was okay despite the pills he had taken before.

He was out of it and comfortably numb despite Dean pretty much ruining his life only twenty minutes ago. He faintly made out the movement of Charlie gently checking out his arm and finding no sign of needle use. He wasn’t so pleased when he heard her telling Dean they’ll have to check between his toes when they stopped.

He wanted to scream that he doesn’t inject anything and that would have been the first time—and it still wasn’t heroin, Dean! It was… well, it wasn’t heroin, so there was that. Injecting Oxy wasn’t something he was about to pride himself on. He already snorted it, which he was not looking forward to Dean forcing him to admit.

Sam was having a pretty decent time in the back of the Impala, occasionally watching the trees and road signs out the window. It took him until they nearly reached their destination to realize they weren’t at all near Dean’s house. He was ready to ask when the car stopped and he was already being half-helped and half-dragged from the car by big, strong hands.

“Where…” he slurred, eyes shut against the bright sun he was exposed to.

“Bobby’s.”

Sam gave his brother a confused look but received no answer. He was walked into the house and through the dusty halls until he was being pushed down onto a guest bed in an extra room by the stairs. He knew the room—he and Dean used to sleep there whenever they had to spend the night with Bobby as kids.

He heard the door closing and looked up to see he was now alone with his brother. Even in his hazy mind he knew this wasn’t going to be good. Not one bit.

Dean sat on the bed and put a strong, heavy hand on Sam’s shoulder as if to tell him _don’t you dare try to move_. Sam nodded dumbly and waited for his brother to do something.

“See, Sam, I’d break your nose right now if I wasn’t positive you can’t feel _anything_ right now.”

Sam blinked.

“Bobby had a chat with the she-witch. She said you didn’t do any heroin but I’m not anywhere close to trusting either of you. But, hell, at least she said you were popping pain-killers like candy.”

Here it was. It was all out in the open.

“I didn’t even know you were on this shit until I found something in your room. That was _today_. Do you know how… _painful_ it is to find out your brother is popping pills then catch him about to…” Dean clenched his jaw and counted in his head. “We’re having another talk when you’re sober. Until then, you’ll be in here and we’ll be making sure you don’t do any more stupid things.”

Sam definitely didn’t like the sound of that but nodded anyway. He was pretty high at the moment and was fading in and out of what Dean was saying, but the tone was harsh and low. Even when he began listening mid-sentence he knew from the first sounds that it was bad.

He laid back onto the bed and didn’t pay any attention to his brother getting up and taking a seat by the door. This was going to be his last good time until Dean forces him to quit drugs and stop seeing Ruby.

It was cute how Dean thought he could just force Sam to do what he wanted. Sam smiled and cuddled into the pillow on the bed. He was going to go down fighting.

* * *

Sam felt sick when he woke up. He was half sure he was going to throw up before he could make it somewhere with a trashcan or toilet. Shivers wracked his body and he sat up rigid. He was startled by the sight of his brother watching him from the same chair as before, though in a different shirt.

“Finally up,” Dean said more to himself than to Sam. “It’s about time. You’ve been out since six… yesterday.”

Sam shivered and pulled his blanket closer to himself. “What time is it now?”

Dean rolled his eyes. Of course Sam wasn’t surprised at all the time he lost. “Noon.”

“I don’t feel well,” Sam admitted.

Dean raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. “You’re not getting any sympathy from me, bud. Charlie did some research. You’re probably just in withdrawal.”

“W-withdrawal?” Sam was shocked to hear that but trusted Charlie, who was about as smart as he was, not to brag. He’d gone longer than eighteen hours without a hit, how could he be in withdrawal?

“Hey, I’m just glad you didn’t OD.”

The statement was cold but it didn’t faze Sam and his growing need to do something or get something in him.

“It gets worse before it gets better,” Dean taunted, an arrogant smirk pulling at his cheeks.

Sam closed his eyes slowly and felt the sickness growing. “Go fuck yourself.”

He flinched again when he heard the door slam and looked up to see Dean had left. He was glad to be alone but the nerves grew that he was about to be in even worse trouble. If this was Dean going easy on him then he didn’t think he was ready yet to face Dean finally losing it.

The door opened again with Bobby joining Dean. He had the disappointment of a thousand fathers on his face. The door was shut again and Sam wondered just what they were keeping it closed for—were they trying to hide what they do? Were they afraid he’d make a break for it?

Which he would. In time.

Bobby cleared his throat before beginning his speech, which Sam regretted not being high to zone out during. “Look, boy. I know you’re having a real tough time lately, I do. But you can’t go doing _this_ kind of shit when it gets hard. Your brother took you in and did what he could to help you but you can’t keep pushing people away. You need to—”

Sam scrunched his face at the headache forming behind his eyes. “Bobby, that’s all great, but shut the fuck up. I don’t care. I don’t fucking care. Just let me go and live my own life.”

“That’ll be hard to do when you’re choking on your own vomit,” Bobby snarled. “I practically raised you and I better not hear that kind of attitude again, you hear me?”

Sam looked up with the most sarcastic eyes Dean had ever seen.

“We’re helping you whether you like it or not.”

Sam laughed humorlessly. “Help? Oh, like how Dean teased me when I didn’t sleep around in college then got pissed when I got serious with someone? Or how about when I go to him for help and he just screams at me until I have a panic attack? Yeah, Dean,” Sam shot a glare to his brother. “You did that and you left before you could face it. So try to help all you want, just know I’ll always respond with ‘fuck you.’”

“That was once,” Dean replied lamely. “I didn’t know you panicked, Sammy.”

That was a break. “I was already high when you came back to say sorry.”

Dean swallowed hard. He caused Sam to do it, at least that once.

The room was getting harder to breathe in and the tension was from floor to ceiling. Noticing Dean wasn’t going to take control of the situation, Bobby stepped in with his poker face.

“This is settled, Sam. You’re staying here to dry out. Then after that you can go do whatever you want. But for now, my _godson_ is staying _here_.”

The other men backed out of the room and Sam heard the click of a lock from the other side. He was trapped and the windows didn’t even open—they had been nailed shut for safety after Dean tried to sneak out as a teenager. The sick feeling seemed to only get worse and Sam knew he would have to find a way to escape soon; to escape before he was too weak and pained to.

But instead of standing from the bed to jimmy the nails lose, he crumbled to the floor and threw up.


	8. Chapter 8

Being beaten to death with a hammer was a preferable feeling to _this_. The past few hours (or days, it felt like _days_ ) were spent hunched over and with nails digging into Sam’s sides. He had been in some of the worst pain he’d felt in years. His stomach was cramping up terribly and he was sorely disappointed when throwing up did nothing to soothe it.

His captors eventually began to take pity on him when tempers cooled off. It wasn’t totally Sam’s fault this is happening—he willingly took these drugs but they didn’t know how it started or why he did it. ‘For fun’ was what they feared, but what Sam had said before made them think he did it more for his internal pain.

Sam was relieved to look up through his messy bangs to see Charlie and Dean entering the room. His eyes burnt and he shut them tight again. He felt Charlie’s small, cold hands brush his hair aside and he heard her voice calling to Dean to plug something in.

He opened his eyes again to see Dean with a baby blue heating pad in his hands. Tired green eyes were transfixed on the small dial attached to the cord and turning it to “high.” He knew in the back of his mind that the heat of square pad would help alleviate some of the tensing and stabbing pains but couldn’t stand the thought of moving his arms from their protective embrace of his stomach.

“Okay, Sammy,” Dean’s much calmer voice called. “Move your arms and lift your shirt.”

The muscles of Sam’s arms twitched. He wanted to comply, he did, but he was having trouble thinking straight with the growing feeling of sickness and his cramped stomach.

“Do you need some help there?” Dean asked, trying his best to be patient with his ailing brother.

Sam just nodded and regretted the movement shaking his brain all over the place. The feeling was only worsened when Dean was a little too rough in forcing Sam to lie on his back with his arms held firmly to the mattress and away from his torso. Sam’s stomach muscles tensed up and spasms twitched beneath the skin. His legs bent up to curl up again but it didn’t hinder Charlie when she quickly pushed his sweat dampened shirt up and pressed the pad down firmly.

Dean let go and Sam sighed as he rolled to his side to curl up and hold the pad down tightly. It helped the pain a bit but nothing would ever make it truly end. Not until he was clean—and that definitely wasn’t an option.

Soon hands were carding through his hair and swiping away the strands sticking to his face. Small, soft, totally Charlie hands. The heating pad didn’t help the sudden heat flash he felt coming on.

Withdrawal sucks ass.

A reassuring hand gently patted Sam’s shoulder and he knew it was Dean’s.

“Look, man. I know right now is a really shitty time for you but we need to continue that talk.”

Sam groaned.

“I know. But this is important. Charlie’s here so I won’t even yell, right, Charlie?”

Back with the kid gloves. It’s like Dean thinks Sam is some helpless kid now that he was on his death bed and dying for another hit. It was an upgrade from the previous snarky comments and the power trip everyone seemed to be on, but Sam was irritable and hated it all the same.

“If you answer my questions and listen this will be over a lot faster and you can go back to whatever it is you’re doing. Hell, Charlie said she’d sit with you when it gets too hard.”

Sam didn’t want to admit how nice it sounded to have someone by his side. He was pissed and he was in pain… but the hand playing with his hair was comforting and he liked knowing he wouldn’t be locked up alone. There’s no way Dean would lock him in if he was with her.

When there was no objection, Dean began the barrage of questions. “When did it start?”

Sam smothered his face deep into the pillow as another wave of nausea hit him. He inhaled sharply before trying to think back to the question. “I don’t know, it just happened… s-summer?”

The honestly was greatly appreciated and Dean continued. “What have you done?”

“Just… whatever she gave me when you came... some pot... and,” Sam scrunched his face and fought off the rising bile in his throat. He rasped out, “Oxy.”

“Oxy? _Oxycodone_?”

“Yeah.”

Dean counted in his head. He wasn’t going to lose his cool, he needed to be calm if he was going to get Sam to cooperate. “What about the needle?”

“It was Oxy.”

Dean rolled his eyes, thinking he had caught his brother in another lie. “Damn it, Sam—”

“She c-crushed it up and… I’unno what she did to make it liquid… I wasn’t watching…”

Charlie nodded to Dean that it was the truth—she had done enough research on drugs to know it was a likely possibility. She hadn’t been sure what Sam had done and tried to cover all the bases.

“Had you been injecting it before then?”

“No.”

“Then how were you doing it?”

This was the part Sam didn’t want to be helpful on, but he desperately needed the interrogation over so he could focus on not feeling like he was about to implode. “Chewed it… then crushed it…”

He could swear he heard Dean mumbling something about Charlie Sheen under his breath. “Why did you do it?”

That was when the talking came to an abrupt stop. A pained whine finally escape Sam’s lips and he was so wound around himself he looked like his skin would tear. More guilt spread through Dean’s chest at the expression on Sam’s face, which he had been avoiding looking at.

It was only getting worse and Charlie resorted to using her free hand to rub Sam’s back and whisper soft nothings to him. It didn’t get to Dean until he heard a few broken sobs from his brother.

Maybe Sam did this to himself and he was set on playing Bad Cop but Dean couldn’t keep watching his baby brother when he was like this. He couldn’t keep doing nothing about it. When the sobs didn’t stop was when Dean swallowed his pride and laid himself down and wrapped his arms around his fetal brother. Sam’s head was buried deep into the pillow but inched to be closer to Dean’s warmth.

They hated each other but they needed each other more than anything.

* * *

It was a rough night for everyone. Dean took time off from work to be with his brother and help him while Bobby and Charlie would check up on them when they were off work. Charlie had to leave to go home and Bobby went off to bed while Dean and Sam sat together in the small bathroom near Sam’s room.

The nausea didn’t stop and Sam was miserable lying in bed. Dean had helped him up and to the smaller room where Sam had spent the past hour leaning on the toilet. His eyes were red-rimmed and carried darkening bags. He was in need of a shower with all the sweating and getting sick he had been doing.

Dean sat with his back leaning on the door and watched Sam for any worsening symptoms. It became clear they were done in there when Sam weakly mumbled to Dean, “Bed.”

So they hobbled back to the bedroom and Dean helped his stubborn brother change into some clothes that weren’t damp with sweat and spots of drool from vomiting messily.

Dean did his best to tuck Sam in and make him comfortable through the withdrawal but knew his odds of Sam sleeping were slim to none. The odds of Sam crying in pain and being difficult? Those were terribly high.

When it got bad again Dean tried to mimic Charlie when he saw the little comfort it brought to his brother. He played with Sam’s dirty hair and scratched his blunt nails over the shirt covering Sam’s back. When it didn’t seem to be helping anymore, he gave into what he was admittedly embarrassed to do.

“Hey, Sammy, do you remember that song mom used to like?”

Sam barely registered the voice and groaned weakly in reply.

“She used to sing it when we were little and you always liked it. It’s been a while since you heard it, huh?”

Dean was doing all he could to be delicate. He would resume being mad and pissy when Sam was able to stand on his own again—which, according to Bobby, would be in a couple days if they were lucky. If they weren’t lucky then it would be a week, give or take.

And, with hope Sam was too out of it to remember this but not too out of it to be soothed by it, Dean hummed and prepared to sing what had been their mother’s favorite song. He prayed the memory of innocent times and their late mom would help Sam to be better in some way or another.

_“Oh the summer time is coming, and the trees are sweetly blooming. Where the wild mountain thyme grows around the blooming heather…”_

* * *

The next day was worse. Sam spent his time in and out of coherent thought, caught between asking Dean to just kill him or begging for one more pill.

It worried Dean how sick his brother was. He was wrapping all his blankets around him, then Dean would leave and come back to see all were kicked off to the floor and an overheated Sam writhing on the bed. He was drenched again and Dean would force him into a bath if he didn’t think Sam would drown.

When it would be time to eat, Sam got paranoid. He shoved any food away, positive he would become violently ill if he dared ingest anything. He sparingly sipped the water he was given and Dean was sure he was reaching dehydration.

The scariest moment, however, was when Dean was searching for another pillow—one that hadn’t been drooled and cried over—and heard choking from the locked room Sam was in. Dean rushed to the latches and scraped his hand on the metal in his haste. He threw the door open to see Sam hunched over and coughing hard into his hands; a water bottle was knocked to the floor and spilling out onto the hardwood.

Dean rushed to Sam’s side and put a hand on his back and was fully ready to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Sam’s coughs died down and he returned to a more upright position, still in Dean’s arms. Dean grabbed his face and turned it towards him and scrutinized the paling, shiny skin.

His fingers slipped down to Sam’s neck and felt the racing pulse. Dean stared into Sam’s eyes and concern grew at the sight of barely-visible rings of hazel around blown pupils. Sam looked stoned off his ass but Dean knew that was impossible.

“Lay back down,” he ordered. “And don’t _ever_ scare me like that again.”

Sam leaned back to lay down and braced himself for the new cramps setting in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always a slut for Dean/Jensen singing "Wild Mountain Thyme."
> 
> Sam's withdrawal is based on what I found when I googled it. Extensively. Bonus fun, since I've started this story, I've also gone into withdrawal for the first time. I missed a dose of my legal and doctor-prescribed anxiety meds and let me tell you, it sucks. It was minor I guess? Definitely not what I did to Sam.
> 
> The moral: don't do drugs and don't miss a dose if you're prescribed something. Don't. It sucks ass.


	9. Chapter 9

Everything ached, which was partly due to hunger pains and bed sores alongside the sick feeling of withdrawal. Sam still refused most food in his bouts of paranoia that came and went like his headaches and cramps.

The broken man would soon find that his miserable state would be what led to his freedom.

* * *

Dean paced around outside Sam’s door, brows furrowed from what he was hearing over the phone. “Damn it, Bobby! I told you, he won’t eat anything… No, if I try that he’ll just bite my fingers like a fucking rabid dog… That’s a hell of a lot easier said than done!”

He had tried to get Sam to eat every day, every moment he saw Sam was in the least distress. It got on his nerves that half the time the refusal was less out of fear and more out of spite. Sam wouldn’t even take tea or soda or anything! Just water, sometimes followed with a plea for something for the pain.

As if. Dean would see pigs fly before he trusted his brother with any form of medicine. If he wanted Ibuprofen then he shouldn’t have abused OxyCodone.

But the pale and shaking state of his baby brother was adding more stress to the mountain Dean was faced with. He could take Sam to a hospital and try to get him force fed by doctors but he didn’t want to be so harsh—nor could he afford a bill just to feed the boy. The best chance he had was to either wait for Sam to want food… or take him to a rehab center.

That was a last resort. Winchesters were much prouder than the average men and, while convincing an addict into rehab is never easy, it would end in a bloodbath for Sam.

A moan of pain echoed through the closed and locked door and Dean clicked the phone off. He was getting that boy to eat, damn it! Everyone loves food!

Dean unlocked the metal latch and entered the room to his starved-sick brother in the usual curled position on top of his sheets and blankets. With a silent prayer, Dean moved forward, ready for negotiations.

“Hungry, Sammy?”

Sam cracked a glassy eye open. “Go to hell,” he grunted.

Dean rolled his eyes and sat beside his brother, to Sam’s dismay. “Look, man, I know I’m the devil and all I do is crash the parties and find new ways to make you miserable,” he said, treating Sam like an unruly teenager caught with beer. “But you _need_ to eat. You haven’t eaten in almost three days and, man, it’s only making you feel worse than you already do.”

Sam groaned again but refused to agree with the statement.

“So let’s talk about what’s in it for you.”

Sam opened his eyes again and watched his brother curiously. “What do you mean?”

“If I bring you something to eat, _and you eat it_ , then you’ll get something out of it.”

“Like what?”

Dean mulled over some possibilities in his head. “What do you want?”

Did he really just ask the addict what he wanted? While Sam knew he wouldn’t be getting what he truly wanted, he felt this was a small victory. He wore his brother down enough to leave him an opening—to fucking make demands! Finally!

But then the trickster side of Sam’s personality kicked in. He could get Dean to leave him alone and Bobby was at work—he’d be truly alone. He could have time to plot and make his great escape.

Sam closed his eyes again and acted like he was thinking it over. “Can you…” he hissed at an imaginary hunger pain and bit his cheek to not crack a grin at the worried expression dart over Dean’s eyes. “Can you get the picture from my box?”

Dean tried to think back to what was in the box but couldn’t remember exactly what picture Sam was asking for. “Yeah, sure, Sammy. Which one?”

“The one with mom and us. It’s in a black frame. Please, Dean…”

That was the exact moment Dean’s heart broke. His poor brother must be missing the comfort their mother used to provide for them when they were sick as kids. She was always the best at making the pain go away. Now Sam needed her the most and all he had left was a piece of paper.

“You got it,” Dean said in a near-whisper. Sam watched as he got up to leave the room, forgetting to latch the lock before leaving Bobby’s house.

Sam smiled to himself. He just needed to wait now.

* * *

Standing was a dizzying affair and Sam barely made it to the doorframe before he had to grab onto the wall for support. Dean was right—he should have eaten something before. He assumed Dean intended for a trade-off with the picture for food, leaving before even getting his end of the bargain.

He was ready to bend over and throw up the few drops of water in his stomach by the time he made it to the porch and into the daylight. The sun felt much too bright and sickening but it was a sign of hope.

Another bout of dizziness hit when he reached one of Bobby’s many junkyard cars that littered his large yard. He knew which cars were useable for the short distance he planned to use them for. Hotwiring the car, on the other hand, was a tediously long affair as he’d only ever done it once.

Ruby taught him so much in their time together.

The sound of the car kicking on brought a weak smile to his face and he took a few deep breaths to calm the aching and heat flashes before driving away from the house and into the world again.

* * *

_“Moose? What the hell is—”_

Sam leaned back onto the glass of the phone booth and winced at the waning withdrawals. “Shut up, Crowley.”

_“What did you just say to me?”_

“Look, I’ve had the worst week of my life, just have some shit ready for me, I’m coming over.”

There was a chuckle. _“Ruby told me you were taken away by your brother. I see you didn’t tell the big, mean Dean about your prescription?”_

Sam bit his tongue in an attempt to subdue his irritation. “I swear to god, Crowley, if I live one more day in withdrawal I will find you and I’ll rip your goddamn heart out!”

The threat didn’t bother the dealer in the slightest. _“Whatever you say, Moose.”_

The line went dead and Sam tapped his forehead into the glass. The pains were returning and he needed to get to the short man immediately. He needed to get his shit and he needed to get the hell out of dodge, maybe skip town before Dean even knows he’s gone.

Speaking of Dean, fuck that guy. How could he do that to Sam? Locking his brother away like some animal so he could lay alone in agony. Who does that to their own family? And all the while he acted like Sam was the bad guy!

The pain continued but Sam didn’t care. He got back in the stolen car and sped off in the direction of Crowley’s house, speeding through yellow lights and taking sharp curves like Dean would in an emergency.

The sight of the house as it came into his view was breathtaking. _There were drugs inside_. It nearly brought a tear to Sam’s eye.

He opened the door and let himself in without knocking. Crowley raised his brows and gave a look as if to ask ‘really?’ It went unnoticed by the giant and he got right to business.

“More.”

Crowley rolled his eyes at the simplicity. “What’s the magic word?”

“I’m a foot taller than you and I can beat you to death.”

Crowley smirked. “Where’s the payment, Moose?”

Shit. Sam knew he forgot something. The instant wave of regret and nausea washed over him and nearly knocked him flat on his ass. Lucky for him, Crowley had a job in mind.

“I figured. Let’s make a deal then—you get what you want, I get what I want.”

“I’ll do it.”

There was no hesitation, no questions asked about the vague request. Sam didn’t care if he had to throw a sack of kittens into a river— _he needed more_.

They walked to the couch Sam had sat in for his first time snorting drugs. His hands were shaking and he was just as damaged by the anticipation of the hit to come as he was by the withdrawal.

“I need you ready to go, so I’m letting you have a little upfront,” Crowley said as he casually marked up a few powdery lines on the coffee table before them. He was actually prepared for Sam, meaning he had a few pills crushed and ready to go. “I don’t need you fucking it up because you can’t go two days without being high.”

The hint of disgust lacing the last words was curious to Sam—what kind of dealer judged his own clients?

Two lines were ready to go. Sam took a few more deep breaths to calm his clenched stomach and leaned forward to inhale every grain of Oxy he could. The change was instant—or so it felt.

The world was getting hazy and he returned his attention to the man beside him. “W-what do I have to do now?” He asked, more interested in getting more than helping the Brit.

There was something about the dark look in Crowley’s eyes and his lopsided smile that should have set off red flags had Sam’s mind not be recently numbed.

* * *

Dean dropped the bag in his hand which had contained the photograph and food from his trip to the grocery store. He immediately saw the front door was left ajar but brushed it off, thinking he forgot to close it in his haste to get Sam what he needed.

It was he saw Sam’s bedroom door, wide open, that he knew it was time to panic.

“Son of a bitch!”

Dean ran around the small area around Sam’s room and called out with desperate hope that Sam was just in the bathroom or feeding himself.

“Sam! SAM!”

He knew. Sam was long gone and it was entirely his fault.

Dean dug his phone from his pocket and dialed Bobby, cursing to himself. He felt fidgety and couldn’t stand still, constantly pacing and looking for some kind of clue as to where Sam had gone off to and how long he’d been gone.

_“Dean?”_

“Bobby! Sam ran away!”

* * *

It turned out that driving while numb was a terrifying idea… or it would be, if Sam hadn’t been lulled into such a relaxed state. He was cruising around in Bobby’s car and trying to figure out where the hell he was since he seemed to nod out every few minutes.

He knew, deep down, this was one of the worst things he’d ever done. He shouldn’t be high, he shouldn’t have tricked Dean, he shouldn’t have agreed to ‘run an errand’ for his drug dealer, and he sure as hell shouldn’t be driving a stolen car. It was all in the back of his mind and locked away for the next few hours.

The most fucked up part: he didn’t question Crowley during any of the explanation of his job. That’s right! Sam Winchester, the Stanford graduate who had dreams of becoming a lawyer, who had always been the logical and level-headed brother, didn’t even blink at Crowley’s request that he drive to a house for a quick robbery.

Crowley got word that there was a competitor—some punk _who didn’t work through him_ had moved into town and began dealing out and hurting the profits Crowley had worked so hard for. This kid had the gall to just uproot his business like this and apparently had yet to learn that you don’t cross Crowley.

Everyone knew better than to get on Crowley’s bad side.

It was just some college kid—Adam?—starting up a few miles into the city. He was costing the sells of Crowley’s usual younger customers and those were the highest this time of year. Sam didn’t see the problem with breaking into the kid’s home and taking everything he had to sell and then some.

He also had no problem with beating the kid’s ass if he should come home earlier than anticipated.

* * *

There was no luck in finding Sam. Both Dean and Bobby were on the search for the runaway since his absence was discovered nearly an hour ago. Concern was welling up that Sam was doing something stupid and dangerous.

Ruby hadn’t seen him, and Dean knew it to be the truth. The woman was irritated to see the Winchester but wasn’t defensive about Sam not being there. All the doors in her apartment had been wide open and there was no sign of the giant brother. As a bonus, she told Dean just how much she wanted to have nothing to do with either of them.

After circling the local park for the third time, Dean realized there was a name he had forgotten to check out—the only other person he knew to be in association with Sam during his drug-hazed recent months.

_“Name’s Crowley. I’m a friend.”_

_“I’m a friend of his. Ruby introduced us, actually.”_

Realization hit Dean like a train. Crowley knew Sam and Ruby, Ruby introduced Sam to drugs—Ruby was dealing, for Christ’s sake! The only logical conclusion to the worried-sick man: Crowley is Sam’s dealer.

And Crowley was going to die.

* * *

The search for Sam was feeling hopeless for Bobby. The boy wasn’t at home, he wasn’t at Ruby’s, he wasn’t anywhere they knew. He called around and asked for “a tall man, over six foot, has long hair and might look sick” but got nothing helpful. No one he asked had seen Sam. There was no sign of him anywhere.

When Sam wanted to get lost, he got lost.

A weight dropped in Bobby’s gut when he drove past a river that held a large bridge overtop for cars to cross. There was a drop from the road and down a steep incline to the water, which had always been littered with trash or blown tires. This time, however, there was an addition to the usual trash.

At the bottom, close to the structure of the bridge, was a crashed car. Smoke still seeped out of the crushed hood and it was beyond totaled. The thing is, Bobby recognized the car… it was one of his that he had been fixing up at his house.

The mechanic shut his car off and hopped out, rushing to the bottom of the incline to inspect the car. Before he could find who he had been searching for, he heard a weak moan and saw the splatter of blood across the shattered windows.

“ _Sam_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goddamn it, Sam.


	10. Chapter 10

The side of the car was banged up but the door was still openable—albeit it was a workout forcing it partially ajar. Bobby felt sick to his stomach at the sight of Sam, hunched over the steering wheel, blood trickling down the side of his face. There was no seatbelt to undo and it was a miracle Sam hadn’t been projected through the windshield.

Bobby knew better than to move Sam, seeing the damage that could be fatal if the wrong movement jarred the unconscious man. Gently, Bobby eased a calloused hand forward and stroked Sam’s hair behind his ear to expose his pale, bloody face. The skin beneath his fingers was cooler than it should have been and more panic arose in the older man.

He pressed two fingers to Sam’s neck and nearly collapsed in relief when he felt a pulse. He then pulled his phone from his pocket, ready to take Dean’s outrage when he would have to tell him he found Sam… and called for an ambulance.

They weren’t big on the idea of ever involving the police or hospitals, especially now that Sam was doing something very much illegal. Bobby didn’t care and wasn’t about to let his godson _die_ because Dean wants to handle everything himself.

The operator picked up and Bobby tried to calm himself before saying, “My son was in an accident—he’s cold but breathing. I don’t know if he’ll make it… We need someone here _now_!”

* * *

The world slowed down and dulled in color when Dean heard those words over the phone.

_“I found Sam; it’s not good. Meet us at Saint John’s Hospital.”_

Every part of this, every little implication, terrified Dean. His brother was hurt, _his brother was hurt enough to need a hospital_. His hands were shaking when not tightly gripping the steering wheel. Dean blindly reached his right hand to click on the cassette player and continue where the Metallica tape stopped at. He found that even the music couldn’t calm his nerves.

The hospital parking lot was large and full. Dean didn’t want to waste time and parked in the back with the intent of running through those doors and finding his brother.

Inside he found the desk with a receptionist he normally would hit on had he not been there for Sam. Even the perfect angle he stood to see down the woman’s shirt was ignored as he breathlessly asked for help.

“My—my brother was just in an accident. I need to, to, I need to know where he is.”

The woman tried to give him a warm smile and spoke softly as not to rile up the panicking man. “What’s his name?”

Dean mentally kicked himself. “Sorry—Sam, uh, _Samuel_ Winchester.”

The woman frowned lightly when she informed Dean he couldn’t see his brother yet, as he was being treated for his accident and undergoing other examinations. He swallowed back his stinging emotions and walked away to find Bobby in the waiting room.

Bobby sat alone with his hat in his fists, looking close to prayer. Dean wordlessly sat beside him and huffed a breath out.

“We really screwed up, didn’t we?” He asked, tone dull.

Bobby didn’t look up. “We did what we thought was best.”

Dean leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head rested in his palms. His heart was still racing from the drive over and the intake of all the bad news.

“He’s going to live, Dean.”

Dean said nothing.

* * *

After an eternity of waiting a doctor came out to retrieve Dean and Bobby, who had been worrying themselves sick in their seats since they sat down. He led them down hall after hall until they reached Sam’s room.

The room was a bit cramped and very grey in color. The sight of Sam, sat on the inclined bed with a tube in his mouth, was like a punch to the gut. Sam had been cleaned up since Bobby had seen him, though the new look of tubes and wires wasn’t much of an improvement over the blood.

His long hair was brushed behind his ears and exposed a stitched gash over his left eye. There were ugly bruises along his face, giving his innocent face a black eye and making his nose appear swelled. A tube was taped around his mouth to help him breathe and Dean wished they could have given him something that was less terrifying to see, like one of those masks.

Sam’s right wrist was in a splint. His chest, though not exposed through the gown, had wires all around; Dean assumed to check his heart, going by the annoying beeping monitor. There was an IV in Sam’s good arm.

The doctor turned to the men, ready to give a full explanation to Sam’s condition. “Mr. Winchester,” he addressed Dean. “Your brother has sustained a number of injuries from the car accident he was in earlier today. His right wrist is broken, his shoulder was nearly dislocated, his ankles are bruised and sprained, and he hit his head which required stitches. However, we believe his accident to be caused by his intoxication. His tox screen came back positive for oxycodone, marijuana, and ketamine. We’ve already begun treatment for his overdose—”

Dean choked. “Overdose? Sammy _overdosed_?!”

Bobby placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder, to calm and to warn. The doctor nodded.

“Yes, I understand it may be hard to hear. Your brother is stable now, but he did suffer a seizure in the ambulance and has had trouble breathing, which is why we have him intubated.”

Dean shot a dirty look at Bobby, who avoided his gaze. He just _had_ to avoid telling Dean about what happened in the ambulance.

“We’ve given him naloxone to reverse the effects of the oxycodone. Mr. Winchester, it is truly a miracle your brother survived the accident. If this happens again, I’m not so sure he’ll make it.”

The grave tone hit hard within Dean and he nodded numbly. He was going to get it right this time—he wasn’t going to lose Sam. He was too close to losing him today and he wasn’t going to watch his brother be buried.

* * *

“Hello?”

_“Garth, it’s Bobby.”_

“Well, I know that! I’ve got you on the caller-ID,” Garth chuckled. He got up from his dusty, patched-up couch and paid no mind to the few roaches to crawl out from under his cushion. He approached his old 1950’s television to turn the knob and silence it while he talked.

_“Garth, I ain’t got time for you being an idjit,”_ Bobby said gruffly _. “I need you to do something for me.”_

“Well, sure, Bobby,” Garth said as he sat back down on the couch. “What’cha need?”

_“Have you heard of a man named Crowley?”_

“Well, who hasn’t? He’s a pretty big name around here. One of my neighbors gets monthly visits from one of his men for not making payments.”

Bobby hummed. _“You don’t seem bothered.”_

“Why would I be?”

_“Because you’ve witnessed a drug dealer having your neighbor shaken down.”_

Garth gasped. “Crowley is a _drug dealer_?! I thought he was just a loan shark!”

_“How is that any better?”_ Bobby asked dryly.

“What—what do you need me to do with Mr. Crowley?” Garth asked with some hesitation.

_“He needs to be taken care of. He almost got Sam killed.”_

“You want me to _kill_ him?”

_“What am I, a mob boss? No, you idjit! Run him out of town, threaten him, you need to do something. I’m sending Rufus over to you. Dean’s itching to get his revenge but knowing that idjit, he’d end up in jail because he doesn’t think. I’m not letting that Crowley bastard anywhere near Sam ever again.”_

Garth nodded into the phone and felt some confidence bloom in his chest. He knew Crowley wasn’t someone to trifle with—but Sam was his friend and he’d be damned if he let Crowley hurt his friend again! And maybe, just maybe, they’ll tell him what’s going on without being so vague.

* * *

The beeping of the heart monitor was just as irritating as it was concerning. The past hour had been spent with Dean sitting by his brother’s side, watching the ugly tube push air into his lungs and keeping him stable. He wanted Sam to wake up and say he’s all better, but he didn’t want to be around when he woke up gagging on the tube.

Someone came by to administer more naloxone after a while and Dean wondered if Sam would have to go through another week of withdrawal. Color was faint on Sam’s skin but at least it wasn’t blue—Dean was googling overdose symptoms on his smartphone and nearly vomited when he inevitably imagined each symptom on Sam.

_An unconscious Sam, skin blue and bloody. His heart beating much too fast yet barely able to breathe. Falling into a coma and never waking up, dying instead before he could reach help._

Dean wiped a tear from his eye before it could fall. It was best not to do this to himself. Not now. Not while Sam actually was unconscious and struggling to breathe in the hospital.

Bobby entered the room, nodding to Dean before taking his own seat on the other side of the bed. They spent their time in an uncomfortable silence, only hearing the sounds of the equipment or people in the hall. They would watch Sam’s face intensely, as if willing him to just wake up. Sometimes they’d stop to take in the ugly mars all over Sam’s skin.

They waited until they were asked to leave. Abandoning his brother didn’t sit well with Dean.

* * *

The room was too bright and the overwhelming need to cough and gag sent panic through Sam before he could register that he was, in fact, breathing.

He felt light and groggy and the world was hazy. Someone came in to see him and check on him, though he was too out of it to pay much attention. A man he assumed to be a doctor came in to check on his breathing.

Sam may have been sleepy or possibly high, but he wasn’t an idiot. He was in a hospital and it didn’t take a genius to figure it out. He was on his back, in a white room, feeling a restriction and numbness unlike when he took Oxy.

Of course, he had yet to connect the dots as to why he was in the hospital. When he woke up more he was surely going to panic.

The man inspected Sam, paying close attention to the tube and his breathing. Sam was disappointed when the tube wasn’t removed just yet, the doctor saying something about needing to be sure he didn’t still need it.

The tube was long gone by the time Dean came back to visit. There was a relief radiating off his face when he saw his baby brother awake and breathing on his own. Sam still seemed half-asleep with his drooping eyes and calm demeanor.

Bobby came in behind Dean and had the same relief hit him. Sam felt something tugging in his stomach at the reaction—was it guilt? Why would _he_ feel guilty when it was Dean and Bobby being dicks to _him_ last time he saw them?

“Sammy,” Dean nearly whispered, eyes set on his brother’s sleepy face. He approached him and was careful not to touch the bruising around Sam’s black eye when he brushed the wayward bangs back. It was a gentle motion, a soft touch Sam hadn’t felt since his first day of withdrawal when Dean laid with him.

“Dean,” he tried to say back, the sounds being dry from his sore throat.

Bobby came back into view, greeting Sam, “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

Sam’s eyes went from Dean to Bobby and back. “What happened?”

The deep lines and wrinkles on Bobby’s face furrowed before he answered. “You were in a car accident. You, uh… overdosed while driving.”

Sam’s eyes widened. That’s why he was in the hospital? The doctors would know about the drugs, he was going to go to jail, or, or—

“Sammy, calm down,” Dean shushed his brother, the monitor picking up speed. He rubbed Sam’s shoulder and conveyed all the calmness he could. “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble, okay? Right now all you need to worry about is getting better.”

Sam nodded and bit his lip, failing to push aside the fear of being caught again. His visitors took their seats and Dean had all the patience in the world as he explained what Sam had hurt in the accident and how long it would take before he could do certain things again.

“You scared us bad,” Bobby said after the silence to fall after Dean’s ramblings. “When I found you like that, barely breathing, I thought… I could have sworn you were…”

Tears prickled at Sam’s eyes and he bit his lip again.

Dean swallowed before admitting in a strained voice, “It felt like a fuckin’ nightmare, Sammy. Even seeing you like this _now_ —it’s hard to breathe, man.”

The hatred Sam had felt before had completely faded. The resentment of being forced to dry out and being watched like a hawk felt so childish. He felt selfish now, being in a hospital after wrecking Bobby’s car and tricking Dean and running away to do more pills.

There was a burning in his heart and a constriction all around when he saw the hurt men before him. Just imagining what it had to have been like for Bobby to find him was heart-wrenchingly painful. Dean couldn’t even trust him to stay put for an hour! He used his dead mother’s photograph to escape—and he ran to Crowley, of all people!

Crowley, who was fine sending him off in a stolen car to beat up some kid!

The world came crashing down and Sam felt like he was being thrown into the sun. The sound of his hoarse, broken sobs sent Dean and Bobby’s attention back to him from their gazes at the floor.

Sam was a mess, once again. His head was bent down to his chest; arms too heavy to bring up to his face to hide himself or wipe tears away. He was lucky, though, to have a brother suddenly engulfing him in a hug. Dean shushed him and held him as tight as he could without hurting him.

“ _I’m so sorry_ ,” Sam sobbed into Dean’s shirt. His tears were falling hot and fast, starting a puddle on Dean’s shirt. “ _I’m sorry… sorry… sorry_ …”

This time Dean believed it.


	11. Chapter 11

The nausea and headaches were back but Sam swallowed back the pain in an effort to begin his penance. He wanted a hit more than anything but he wouldn’t give in, not this time, never again. The thought of telling a nurse his shoulder hurt or he was in pain occurred to him, followed by the rational thoughts that would soon fade; the thoughts that said _they know you overdosed. You can’t trick them_.

He pushed his skull deeper into his pillow and waited desperately for Dean to come back for his daily visit. He could use a distraction and he needed to talk to his brother more, to check that he wasn’t mad at him. He felt terrible about what happened and _needed_ to know Dean still loved him.

“Not looking so hot, Sammy.”

Sam turned his head to the door where Dean was waiting. “H-hey, Dean.”

Dean stepped up to the bed and looked over his sickly brother with concerned eyes. “Feeling sick?”

“Yeah,” Sam admitted. “But I’ll be f-fine.”

The answer came as a surprise. Dean could see the withdrawal setting in again but he expected Sam to act like before—to bitch out, to try to escape, to act like he was dying or like Dean was the devil because it was obviously Dean’s fault he’s in pain.

But instead he saw his brother soldiering through. He saw the wetness in Sam’s eyes that wasn’t from pain. He saw the way Sam kept looking up with childlike eyes and looking away like he was embarrassed.

“What’s up with you?”

Sam tried to furrow his eyebrows against the headache. “What?”

Dean rolled his eyes and took a seat. “Come on, man. You’ve been against me since I took you from Ruby’s and now you’re—you’re—‘ _fine_?’ You should be pissed you’re in withdrawal and you should be pissed I’m even in the same room—the same _hospital_ room—as you! Why are you acting like the old Sam? Why aren’t you freaking out?”

There was a pause. The wetness built up before spilling down Sam’s cheek. He sniffled and looked away at the wall to collect himself. “Because I meant what I said the other day, Dean… I’m _sorry_. A-and I’m not going to put you through more shit because _I_ fucked up.”

It felt as if icicles were digging into Dean’s chest. “Sammy—”

“It’s _my_ fault I’m here. _I_ did pills, _I_ ran back to Ruby, _I_ stole and wrecked Bobby’s car. A-and it shouldn’t have taken me until I nearly died to see what a dick I’ve been.”

Another silence fell upon the room as Dean took in the change of his brother. Sam sniffled again and awkwardly wiped at his nose with his cast-covered hand.

“I want to get better… I want to be your brother again, not—not some _drug addict_ you have to lock away because I lost your trust.” Sam looked down to his lap and focused on his breathing before dropping the bombshell. “When I’m discharged… I want to g-go to rehab.”

Dean’s head shot up and he stared at his brother with wide eyes. “Sammy, are you serious?”

Sam nodded solemnly. “It terrifies me, Dean… but I don’t want to OD again… I don’t want to make you and Bobby worried sick while I’m passed out with a tube down my throat.” His voice was broken and hoarse, each word cracked and sounded like defeat.

Dean wasn’t a touchy-feely person, which is why it came as such a surprise when he got up from his seat and wrapped his arms around his brother. Sam did his best to reciprocate the hug and let his head fall into the crook of Dean’s neck.

“I’m proud of you, Sammy.”

Sam sobbed and held on tighter. He was scared and craved his brother’s warmth to make him feel safe again. He didn’t want to go to a rehab center but he knew he needed to. Every logical part of his mind knew he would keep going back to Oxy and Ruby if he didn’t get his head squared away. He had to make this decision while he still had some clarity, before the withdrawal said otherwise.

“I’m fucked up,” he accidentally said out loud.

Dean held him tighter but said nothing. In his mind he told himself, _I know_.

* * *

The withdrawal was in full-swing by the time Dean was checking Sam into the rehab center. It was hard for Sam to part with his brother when a doctor came by to whisk him away for examinations.

“He’s in good hands, Mr. Winchester,” the dark-haired man said. “We’ll keep you updated on his progress. He’ll be allowed to call you once we deem him well enough.”

Dean nodded against the tightness in his throat. He finished signing a few forms at the front desk before waving to Sam and leaving the building. It was a difficult day for everyone, leaving Dean worried sick like a mother sending her child to summer camp.

He met Bobby in the parking lot and got in the passenger seat. The older man patted his shoulder before starting the pickup and leaving the building behind.

* * *

The man took Sam away to check his body over in a white room. He tried to tell Sam what he was doing and why but it flew over the man’s rattled head. The withdrawals were starting to get to him and Dr. Novak could see it plain as day.

“Sam, I need to know what drugs you were on before your hospital stay.”

He had to repeat himself before Sam snapped out of his haze and said, “O-oxy… I thi-think K.”

Dr. Novak took note of that and moved on to a more personal assessment, asking questions about Sam’s state of mind and feelings. It was hard to stay focused but Sam powered through with the mentality of _Dean would be strong, I can be strong._

“Let’s get back to the physical,” Dr. Novak interrupted upon seeing a rather harsh shiver work its way through Sam. “Have you been in withdrawal before?”

“Yeah,” he replied, arms wrapping around himself. He was ashamed to be seen in such a vulnerable, self-inflicted state by a total stranger. Sam struggled to keep even the slightest amount of eye-contact.

“What was your past experience like? Can you tell me what symptoms you felt?”

The doctor waited patiently for Sam to gather his thoughts. “Hot and cold… headache, stomachache, sick,” he weakly replied.

Dr. Novak nodded. “How do you feel now?”

“Cold. Head… sick.”

The doctor decided he knew enough and helped Sam to stand up, grabbing his right arm (having been warned by Dean that the left arm would be sore at the shoulder). They slowly made their way through halls, taking breaks for Sam to take deep breaths, finding Sam’s room at the end.

It was plain with a bed that would prove to be difficult on such a tall patient. There was a small dresser where Sam’s clothes had already been placed. The doctor helped Sam to sit on the bed and saw the sweat beading on the patient’s skin.

He left to retrieve some medicine to help ease the withdrawal process for Sam and waited in the room as the man took the medicine and curled up on the bed.

* * *

His stomach was hurting and all Sam could do was hold it tightly and dig himself into his small bed. His doctor, who he learned to be named Castiel, had stayed by his side to watch over him. Sam found that talking through it eased the suffering, though slightly.

“H-how long do you think I’ll be here?”

Castiel tilted his head. “That’s hard to say. You could be out in a month or so.”

“That’s a long t—” Sam hissed at a new pain. “—time.”

“Not so much,” Castiel replied. “Some people are here much longer. You’re here by your own will. You want to make a change and I trust you won’t be back once you’re out.”

Sam winced and got ready for the hot flash to come back. He could feel it coming on.

Castiel had told him before that once he was able to, he’d be attending group therapy sessions. He wasn’t at all looking forward to it but understood he could gain something beneficial to aid him in staying clean. For now, however, he’d been in his room and suffering for the next couple days.

“C-Cas,” he stuttered out, using the nickname to lessen his time wasted speaking. “I’m gonna get sick.”

Sam was helped up by the gentle yet firm hands of his doctor and they both rushed to the bathroom for the next round of dry-heaving and stomach cramps.

* * *

Before the trip to the rehabilitation center, Garth had already set out to meet up with Rufus to further discuss their plans. Bobby had made it  _very_ clear that they needed to solve the Crowley problem because, if it was left up to Bobby or Dean, it would quickly turn into a homicide investigation.

That is, if they ever found the body.

Calling in Garth and Rufus was Bobby’s best chance at self-preservation. Now that Sam was in rehab for the next month or so, Bobby would need to be sure Dean was too busy to try to exact revenge on Crowley himself. And if Bobby knew Dean, it would take round-the-clock work to keep him from beating the man to death.

Dean hadn’t been suspicious when Bobby began giving him longer hours, asking him to come in on weekends, and giving him more difficult jobs. It did, however, annoy the elder Winchester when he realized he didn’t have a second of free time. As soon as he got home he was bombarded by surprise visits by Charlie or Bobby claiming he left something behind at the shop.

There was the constant checking in and inquiring about his day. It got to Dean and he snapped about two weeks into the separation from Sam.

It was a busy Saturday at the shop and Dean had spent the past hour under a car that should have been traded in for scrap metal years ago. His back ached, his neck was stiff, and his hands were dirty and sticky. Dean was more than ready for his lunch break and pulled himself out from under the car, immediately met with the face of Bobby.

“Jesus, Bobby! You’re about to give me a freaking heart attack!”

Bobby wasn’t bothered by the outburst and rolled his eyes. “You’re as jumpy as a mystery-solving dog sometimes.”

“Are you calling me _Scooby Doo_?”

“That’s his name?”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Scooby Doo is a classic. How do you _not_ know his name? It’s the name of the show!”

The distraction eased some of Bobby’s worries. Sam had at least another two weeks to go and he needed to be positive Dean wasn’t going to strike.

“What’s up with you lately?”

This caught Bobby off guard. “What’re you talking about, boy?”

Dean scoffed and brushed past Bobby on his way to the sinks to clean his grubby hands. “You’ve been up my ass since the hospital. What’s your deal? You think I’m gonna do the same thing Sammy did?”

The notion hurt to hear: that Dean really thought Bobby would think he’d sink that low. “No, you idjit. You’re not your brother.”

“Yeah… Sammy would have killed that son of a bitch by now.” He turned from the sink and swiped his hands on his pants, barely focusing on Bobby as he spoke. “But hey, it’s hard to murder a notorious drug dealer when you’re under constant surveillance.”

The temperature dropped and a chill ran through Bobby at the cold, dead words Dean spoke. He said it like it was nothing, like it was normal, like he made peace with the idea he would _murder_ someone.

All sound left the older man’s throat and Dean turned away to walk out of the shop.

* * *

“Are you ready for group?”

Sam lifted his head from the flat pillow to eye his doctor. Withdrawals had officially ended, he had been fed properly to make up for some of the weight he lost when the pills made him feel sick, and he was getting into a better headspace. Castiel—who didn’t like how comfortable his patients were with calling him by his first name—had given him time to adjust before being thrown into another new experience.

Sam had been attending the group therapy since the withdrawals ended the week before. He was still anxious about being near so many people and talking about himself. There was a shame he couldn’t get over no matter how many times Castiel would say he has nothing to feel bad about, everyone there did the same thing.

Often Castiel reminded him he was one of the only people there because he _wanted_ to get help—that many people were there because their families made them, or it was a part of a court order after drug charges or jail time. It didn’t help.

“Are you still hesitant about the group, Sam?”

With a small huff, Sam sat up and shook his messy hair from his face. “A little.”

“Why is that?”

_Great, extra therapy_ , Sam thought. “I know it’s all a part of getting better, talking about it, but it’s so humiliating.” A blush spread across his cheeks and he diverted his eyes to the wall. “I haven’t even had to say why I started… I—Dean says abuse is abuse, it doesn’t matter I’m a man and she was a woman, but— _come on_. That sounds so bad…”

Castiel stayed by the door and watched Sam fidget and play with the hem of his shirt. “This is a safe environment, Sam, and you need to come to terms with what’s happened.”

“Yeah, I have, I’m in rehab for a reason.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Sam looked up to see his doctor walking into the room and taking a seat in the chair by his bed, the one the man stayed in while Sam writhed in withdrawal upon arrival.

“Sam, you may accept that you have a problem with drugs, and you may understand that it’s changed you and made you act regrettably to your family. Whenever you’ve spoken here you avoid talking about the abuse. You’ve mentioned it, vaguely, that your ex-girlfriend hurt you, but you get shy whenever we get close to speaking about it.”

Sam’s throat felt tight.

“You need to accept that you were being abused and not shove it to the back of your mind.”

The patient nodded but looked down. “I know I was abused.”

“You will only go back to doing drugs if you cannot come to terms with this—it’s not just words, it’s more than the sentence ‘I was abused.’ There are feelings and fears you need to address. Sam, why is it that you struggle to speak more than those three words about it?”

He sniffled a bit and kept his head down. Sam felt cornered; he came here to get clean, not to talk about how Ruby used to—how she— “Can we go?”

Castiel heard the stiffness in Sam’s voice and decided not to push it. They got up and walked to the group session without a word.

* * *

The nightmares returned that night. Sam woke up in a sweat, heart racing, feeling on edge yet struggling to remember what he dreamt about. He ran a shaking hand through his hair and laid back down, staring at the dull ceiling as the dream came back in pieces.

_The acidic bile rising in his throat, burning and bringing the need to cough. The walls swam and the room around him was made of smoke._

_Across the room was Ruby, angry as ever, screaming at Sam, throwing an endless amount of dishware at him. Each item barely missed his head, smashing just to the left._

_“How did you get fucking fired? You were just a bagboy and now do you know what you are? You’re pathetic!”_

He took an unsteady breath. It was less of a dream and more of a memory. He had worked so hard to block out the first time.

 


	12. Chapter 12

“I’m sorry, Sam. We just can’t keep you on the team right now. We’ve lost too many customers to keep all of the staff. I just want you to know that I fought for you—we had to cut a few from every department. I’m sorry, son.”

Sam felt numb and nodded politely to his supervisor. The older man handed a bent envelope over the desk, giving Sam his final paycheck before he was no longer officially employed as a bagboy at the local grocery store.

It hurt in a deep, hot wave. Sam had been so excited when he found this job, which was easy on his mind when he was exhausted from college homework or, after graduation, working to save up money for his girlfriend.

He had plans. He was going to save up what he could at the minimum-wage grocery store and continue his job hunt for a law firm or anything with better pay, to be honest. He needed to save up money to get a used car to get to these fantasy jobs, however. And with Ruby he needed to help out with the bills. He was already living in _her_ apartment—which she casually reminded him whenever there was a disagreement.

He was expected to pay for the grocery and electric bills, along with any little inconvenience to befall him or Ruby. Her car needs a new tire? _I pay the rent._ Ruby’s laptop crashes? _Sam, you wouldn’t even have your job without me—you used my computer to apply._

He finally paid off getting the transmission replaced in her beat-up car and was hurting for money. He couldn’t have lost his job at a worse time. Sam had left his worn black apron in a box in the corner of his bosses’ office before staggering out the door and through the cold freezer aisle.

* * *

The guilt of losing his low-income job didn’t fade no matter how many bad TV shows he skimmed or how many hits of Ruby’s weed he took. Sam didn’t try to get messed up like he and Ruby did on the weekends— _every weekend since he started smoking with her_ —but he needed something to fog his mind. He didn’t drink to ease his turmoil, not since growing up in a household where his father drank for fun, drank when mad, drank when any little thing happened.

If there was something Sam was sure of, it was that he would never turn out like his father and take out his anger on Ruby. He would never hurt her like his father hurt his mother. He never wanted Ruby to be afraid to even speak to him.

Sam would never be like John Winchester.

He truly thought Ruby would be the same way. She had been with him through his late-night study sessions, she had took hits of espresso with him to stay up late at the library, she had celebrated with him when he got overly excited to remember a passage from one of his textbooks flawlessly.

She attended his parents’ funeral with him.

The look in her eyes when she returned home to a stoned boyfriend should have been his first alarm bell that something would happen. She didn’t look concerned, but annoyed. Angry even.

“Sam, I thought you had to work until seven today?”

He shrugged his heavy shoulders and lifted his head from where it rested on the back of the couch. “I was fired… so they sent me home early.”

Ruby’s eyes narrowed a touch. “What do you mean you were _fired_?”

Sam missed the way her body tensed, the way she gripped her purse strap with an iron fist. He was too lost in his head to pick up the building signs of aggression. The only problem he had with smoking weed had been the way it dulled his senses, the way he was always sharp and seeing the hidden details.

He certainly didn’t see the short Brit just outside their door, looming over the scene before disappearing with a smirk on his knowing face.

Ruby turned her back to him, gripping her hair tightly. She paced forward and stopped, turning back abruptly to throw her car keys straight into Sam’s chin. Fast moving things, particularly things being thrown at him, was one thing that freaked out a high Sam. At least, it did when he wasn’t dodging thrown items every other weekend—every other _day_.

“Jesus!” He flinched and grabbed his chin. “Ruby— _what the hell_?”

Ruby narrowed her eyes again and stomped to the sitting man. “I should be saying that! I have a hard day at work and come home to this shit? What, were you fired for being high at work? Or did you just do such a shitty job they had to can you for some fifteen-year-old that knows what he’s fucking doing?!”

Sam felt his high fade at the cruel words. Why was she screaming at him? What got her so mad? “Ruby, I told you, I was let go. The store is losing too much money to keep all of us.”

“Fucking pathetic, Sam.”

The anger she felt at that moment didn’t even compare to twenty minutes later when she found her glass bowl and the burnt weed she had been looking so forward to sparking up all day. It was petty and worthless to get so mad over, but it didn’t stop the woman’s rage from boiling over.

The glass piece was thrown at Sam and broke when it hit the floor—causing the woman to scream, “Look what you did! Look what you broke!”

Sam just flinched away and ran to get the dustpan when Ruby screamed that he better clean his mess up.

* * *

The next day was normal—if normal was Sam walking on eggshells and wondering if the day before was a one-time deal. He found by the next morning, when Ruby was running late for work, that it would become a common occurrence.

It was like the dam holding back Ruby’s true feelings finally broke now that Sam wasn’t working and able to pay for every other utility. She demanded he do all the housework and he best hope he doesn’t miss cleaning or cooking anything by the time she returned home.

“You don’t even work, all I want is a nice home to return to,” she would say with just enough emphasis on Sam’s unemployment.

Even when he cleaned every crevice and every piece of paraphernalia they owned, she would still be mad if she was feeling annoyed by her work or commute. It didn’t take long for the Stanford-educated man to see he’d become a whipping boy. And in the beginning he saw what was happening, that he was being used. He always hesitated when it came to the term ‘abuse.’

One day he finished his chores early, even restocking their supply of air fresheners that specialized in smoke odor, and decided to meet up with Dean. He had just began pulling his jacket on when Ruby returned a few minutes earlier than anticipated. He had hoped to avoid her just this once.

“Where are you going?” She asked, voice even, unsure whether to unleash the rage just yet.

Sam bowed his head for a split-second before the thoughts of you’re a man, what would Dean or Brady or anyone say if you were acting afraid of a girl? “I was going to see Dean, maybe catch up a bit. We haven’t really talked in a while. I thought I’d catch him leaving work.”

Ruby smiled and approached Sam, running her hands up his chest. “Sam, baby, we talked about this. You’re way too codependent to your,” she grimaced when she finished, “ _brother_.”

Sam frowned. “It’s been months, Ruby. I haven’t even talked to him on the phone since—since—”

…How long had it been?

He could only remember the raging headache he had for hours after the phone call. Ruby was in a bad mood. Sam forgot to wash the dishes. Sam fucked up.

The short woman kept her eyes on her boyfriend’s innocent, struggling face. “Come on, baby. Stay home with me. We can have a day to ourselves. I was really hoping to try something new with you.”

Her tone was sickly sweet and Sam knew something had to be up. He just couldn’t make himself care enough to look deeper into the deception, or the fact he was being tricked to stay home and isolated. He just wanted to have a _good_ day with Ruby and he wasn’t going to lose his chance.

“Y-yeah, I could stay.”

* * *

He felt sick to his stomach when he relented and took the two small pills from Ruby’s palm. She nodded her head in encouragement and he ignored the snicker from the British man sitting at their kitchen table.

He met Crowley—he finally met their elusive dealer and now he was sitting in his tainted home while the man watched him. It was unsettling and disturbing until the crushed pills in his mouth finally turned to giggles and euphoria.

* * *

Another plate shattered as it hit wall just beside where Sam was cowering on the floor. He was a trembling mess, head bent low and arms raised over his face. He was trying his best to be smaller and distance himself.

He wasn’t sure what set Ruby off this time—so many instances happened over the last week. Every single day had ended with screams or slaps. Tonight, however, was much worse. It had been this bad before, sure, but the drawing-blood nights were rare.

“You’re so fucking pathetic, you know that?!”

A coffee cup hit the man right in the shin and chipped as it hit the floor. He whimpered at the bruising contact. He was lucky in one aspect—Ruby didn’t care if he whimpered or cried. He was allowed to be upset and to make strangled noises as he choked sobs down.

“I can’t fucking believe you sometimes!”

A perfectly fine plate was thrown, hitting him right in the head, sending Sam to smack his skull into the wall and shudder at the sudden dizziness and nausea. Some bile rose but he swallowed it down, knowing how much Ruby hated it whenever he got sick.

The woman crouched before him, face still carrying the ghost of her previous anger. She seemed to sober at the sight of Sam: shivering, sobbing, red-eyed, bruised, and now bleeding from his forehead. She dug into her pocket, producing a few small pills. She carelessly forced them through his quivering lips.

“Chew them.”

He jerked a nod out and chewed the mystery pills, not caring whether they were Oxy, Tylenol, or fucking heart worm medicine for large breed dogs. When Ruby stopped to give him something, whether it be a towel to clean his blood from the floor or drugs to ease the pain, he knew it was over. Hell, she stopped to give him beer or glasses of whiskey half the time when she’d calm down more.

God, how Sam hoped he wouldn’t have to drink tonight.

Ruby got up and walked away. Sam stayed seated, surrounded by broken plates and cups and his framed family photo before his parents died. The shower head in the next room kicked on and he sighed harshly in relief as his twenty minutes of peace began as the drugs kicked in.

* * *

He shouldn’t have opened that email. He shouldn’t have disregarded what Ruby had said—that he would regret talking to Dean. The woman entered the clean-but-damaged apartment and immediately spotted her boyfriend, sitting on the couch, eyes glued to his phone.

She marched forward and snatched up the device before he could react.

“Ruby, wait, I can explain!”

A hand came down and slapped Sam’s sensitive cheek swiftly. “What did I tell you about talking to Dean? Huh? It’s not healthy and not fucking normal!”

Sam bit back the raising heat in his eyes as Ruby turned her attention to the email which, regrettably, held Dean’s typed words about Sam being on a short leash and needing a break from ‘the warden.’ Even though Dean didn’t call Ruby anything too explicit—he didn’t even call her a bitch!—it didn’t matter to her.

Sam fucked up. Sam fucked up _bad_.

The phone was thrown at the wall, shattering on impact. She returned her attention to Sam, who was tensing up and bracing himself mentally for the incoming pain he was about to be dealt.

She normally didn’t hit Sam, opting for throwing things, smacking, hard pinches, and the like. She didn’t want to hurt herself when _disciplining_ Sam’s misbehavior. The hard punches that landed on his jaw, eye, and cheek were unexpected and knocked the wind out of him. He tried to stand up and run for another room and lock himself in until she would inevitably leave for work— _the next_ day—but was caught. Ruby had wrapped her arms around his torso and became dead weight to stop the much-bigger man from escaping.

She shoved as hard as she could, only releasing Sam as he was falling backwards and into the wall. He groaned as his head hit the solid wall and tried to ground himself against the dizzying pain. Ruby had no intentions of letting him recover and lunged forward, straddling his lap, hands wrapped around his neck. She was the type of woman to keep her nails long and manicured, meaning they were the equivalent to painted talons.

Sam gasped and pushed his hands forward, bracing against Ruby’s body, trying to push her away. He was frightened by how hard it was, how weakened he had become.

_“You. Don’t. Fucking. Speak to him!”_ She cried, thumbs digging harder into Sam’s abused neck.

The bile rose and he panicked, thoughts racing, sight blurring. Then he did something he knew would get his ass beat for—he spat. The acidic liquid splattered against Ruby’s chest and face and she gagged when she realized what had hit her, backing off to wipe the mess from her face.

He took his chance and shoved her off, rushing to his feet despite the way the room was spinning. Sam crashed through the bedroom door and grabbed his go-bag before letting his adrenalin move his legs again.

Yes, he had a go-bag. He wasn’t proud of it, he didn’t tell anyone he had one nor did he ever explain to Ruby why he had a backpack filled with clothes sitting on the floor all the time. Since the email he knew he was in hot water and packed the bag when Ruby was gone, slowing filling it as not to tip off the woman.

Ruby was just standing up from where her ass hit the floor when Sam pushed her away. She saw Sam’s backpack slung over one shoulder and it began to click what was happening. He didn’t hesitate when he walked past her and grabbed the knob of the front door.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Sam paused. He swallowed back his fear and anxiety before answering, “I’m leaving.”

Ruby’s breath hitched. She hadn’t expected him to actually leave. “You can’t just leave!”

The door opened and he walked out without looking back. He hadn’t known it was raining, unable to hear the beating of the rain when he was fighting to breathe and stay conscious. He hopped on a bus at the closest bus stop and ignored the few gawkers.

_Shit. It must be bad._

He was sickened when he saw his reflection in the window by his seat. It wasn’t clear but it gave him a general idea, especially the dark surrounding his one eye (the one he noted having trouble opening).

Unfortunately the stop was still a few miles from his brother’s home, forcing him to walk the rest of the way as the sky darkened and the water drenched his body. It felt like years when he finally saw it: the light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a parked black Impala in the driveway of his brother’s house.

Sam shivered lightly as he walked up the pathway to the porch, pausing on the porch. What would he say? How would Dean react to this?

His hand found the doorbell before he could figure out what to say. He was overly tired, worn, and too mentally exhausted to even want to lie.

The door opened and he saw the shocked face of his big brother staring at him, eyes darting all over his face, stopping at his bad eye. The warmth bleeding out of the house made the moment tolerable.

“Sam… What the hell happened to you?”

A new wave of nausea and anxiety flooded into Sam’s veins. “Can I come in?”


	13. Chapter 13

No one was prouder of Sam than Castiel on his last day at the rehab center. Though it was still a struggle to get Sam to talk much during therapy, especially about the abuse he refused to explicitly speak about, he had made great strides in recovery.

There were plenty of days Sam was tired and just wanted to leave but he knew better—he needed this. He couldn’t do this to Dean and Bobby and Charlie. He couldn’t do it to Cas.

Every chance to call his family was passed up. Sam didn’t want to talk to or even see anyone until he was better; he couldn’t face them when he was in his grey sweatpants. He couldn’t talk to them from some payphone in the hallway as other inmates—wait, no, patients—passed by or tried to listen in to the golden boy that admitted himself.

He found sanity in exercise. There was a small room with limited equipment that Sam liked to use daily. Castiel had given him a simple smile when he came to his one-on-one therapy session beaming about how much better he felt.

“The endorphins seem to be doing you good,” Castiel had chuckled. Well, as much as the man could chuckle.

Sam felt strong. He felt like he did in college, when he could take runs before classes and use the school gym in the evenings. He had become so sedentary when he moved in with Ruby with his job tiring him or his indentured servitude making him soft and lazy.

But now, _oh now_ , Sam felt clean for the first time. He had been clean from drugs for weeks, sure, but he was dirty before. Tainted. Broken.

And he still was broken, he could accept that. But now the pieces weren’t so shattered and bloody. He was coming back together, returning to the Sam he was before. He wanted to be the best Sam he could before returning to his brother’s life. He had to make up for the shit he had pulled the past year.

When Dean finally saw him, he’d be proud to say “Sam Winchester is my brother.”

* * *

Garth wasn’t exactly a hit-man, nor did Bobby ask him to be. The lanky man had met again with Bobby and Rufus, a mutual friend, to speak in more detail about the Crowley Problem.

They all knew Sam and were shocked to hear the young man had fallen into taking pills and acting out the way Bobby vaguely described. The abuse from Ruby was worded a certain way to save Sam the humiliation should it be brought up in conversation; the men weren’t the best with tact and it would set back Sam’s progress if he heard someone like Rufus refer to him as an abuse victim. It wasn’t hard to see Sam struggled with the idea on his own.

“His name’s Crowley,” Bobby reiterated to Rufus as Garth took a stray note here and there. They sat around Bobby’s old, rickety kitchen table as they discussed the issue at hand. “The man’s a menace—last I heard, this Adam kid went missing and Crowley was the last person seen leaving the kid’s home.”

Both guests winced. They knew what surely happened— _everyone_ knew what surely happened.

“Sam gets out soon and I’m not gonna let that boy have another breakdown. As long as Crowley’s in the picture then Sam’s gonna have that temptation.”

Rufus raised his eyebrows. “Sam don’t seem the type to admit himself to rehab then go back to his dealer.”

“Yeah, well,” Bobby sighed. “Crowley ain’t the type to let a loyal customer go so easy. The idjit has his ways. Wouldn’t be surprised if he roped that Ruby into getting Sam back.”

“So then,” Garth spoke up, ready to help his friends. “What can we do to help Sam?”

“We gotta drive that short bastard out of town and far, far away. If we don’t… Well, there’s another Winchester he don’t wanna mess with.”

* * *

Rufus and Garth had spent a week staking out Crowley’s house. They changed cars daily as not to raise suspicion—thankfully Bobby owned quite a few junkers with just enough life to get from Point A to Point B with only a few breakdowns on the way back.

They’d see people enter those big doors and not leave for hours. Sometimes customers would stroll out immediately, looking around for cops. A few times someone would stumble out with glazed eyes and sloppy smiles.

Garth’s heart clenched at the sudden imagery in his mind of Sam being one of those giddy addicts attempting to walk the sidewalk on confused legs. Rufus smirked at the thought of Dean losing his mind and storming into the place and burning it down with Crowley inside.

After the eighth night of watching the steady activity around The House, the men began driving away with their eyes on the mirrors pointed behind them. Garth pulled out his cell phone and began dialing for the police, a nervous energy moving him forward for some kind of justice.

“H-hello,” he stuttered. He eyed the few parked cars on the curb outside of Crowley’s house. “I’d like to anonymously report a burglary.”

* * *

Jeans felt odd after a month of sweatpants. They felt cold and stiff but free. Jeans meant being released, though Sam could have left at any time, he chose to do a full month. He had even considered staying longer after his bad days. Those days where he just laid in his short bed and pulled at his hair and wished—prayed—to be back with Ruby and to feel that thrill of the next line.

And Castiel would come speak with him, remind him why he was there; tell him not to give up on himself. Sam would sit quietly, thinking, why the fuck does he have to do this for himself? He was only here because of what he did to Dean and Bobby and Charlie. He was here to make up for how he betrayed them.

But now he was stronger. Sam wanted to get better for his family but he knew he needed to get better for himself. He couldn’t strain himself trying to appease his family. He needed to want to get better for _himself_. He needed to have that desire to help himself, to be okay when no one else was around to appease.

And as Sam tightened his shoelaces and smoothed down his hair, he felt good. And he was sure as hell finding the closest gym to wherever he would be living because the feeling he got after working out was enlightening in a way he hadn’t felt since before Oxy skewed what felt good and what felt like inner-peace to its truest and purest form.

The feeling after Oxy had felt almost like shame when Sam could understand just what he had done, what poison he willingly and eagerly took to feel “light.”

There was smugness he felt in how amazing he felt post-exercising. There was just _pride_.

Hell. He was about ready to say, “I am Sam Winchester.”

* * *

Sam was walking taller when he left those double glass doors of the rehabilitation center. He looked back once to give an appreciative smile to Doctor Castiel before he left.

And outside waiting was Dean, leaning against the freshly-washed black Impala. The man wasn’t much for displays of affection but the past few months taught him that he would give into any girly chick-flick moments for his baby brother.

Sam couldn’t help the smile dimpling his cheeks and the speed his legs picked up as he approached his brother. Neither were ashamed about the strong-gripped hug they shared as soon as they were in each other’s’ personal space.

When they pulled apart there was a moment of inspecting one-another. Dean looked tired but relieved to see his brother. Sam looked a hell of a lot healthier. His eyes weren’t sunken, his skin wasn’t pale, and his face didn’t seem so thin. There was a sparkle in his eyes and color to his skin.

“Sammy.”

“Dean.”

Even his voice was stronger! It was back to its previous deep yet light tone. It wasn’t worn or hoarse or strung-out.

They hugged again before Dean could let the emotions reach his eyes. They parted to get in the Impala and drive away from the rehab center to get back to their lives—or try to get back to what would be normal.

* * *

“They kept making kissy noises at me!”

Dean snorted and tried not to choke on the beer he had been sipping. “You’re kidding! Sammy, you weren’t in jail!”

Sam grinned and shook stray hair from his face. “Yeah, but some of those guys were _weird_. Like, half of them had to be there for court-ordered stays. The worst wasn’t even one of the prisoners. It was this short fat guy who wouldn’t stop talking about Insane Clown Posse. He went _on and on_ every group session about it. Dude wouldn’t shut up.”

Dean laughed again and set the bottle down on Bobby’s kitchen table. The two had decided to stop by and see the older man again, neither having seen him much the past month (with the exception of when Dean had to see Bobby at work or when Bobby tried to distract Dean from the Crowley and Sam problem).

Bobby came back into the kitchen and wiped oil from his hands after fixing up a leak on one of his cars. “What’re you two idjits laughing at now?”

“Sam was someone’s wife on the inside. I think the ICP nut sold him the meth head for a cigarette.”

Sam tried to cover his rising chuckle with a bitch-face while loudly kicking Dean under the table. “I wasn’t anybody’s bitch!”

Bobby watched as Dean tried to scoot his chair away from his brother’s impossibly long legs. “NO TOUCHING! GUARD! INMATE FOUR-FOUR-TWO-ONE IS INCITING A RIOT!”

Sam knocked his chair over as he hopped up from it. “I’ll show you a riot, jerk!”

“Bitch!”

In an instant the two were running out the kitchen and chasing each other like a couple of six-foot- _too-much_ children. And fuck if it didn’t warm Bobby’s heart.

* * *

The Winchesters stayed at Bobby’s that night and Sam only felt a fraction guilty when he’d walk by the bedroom they had locked him in to detox. It was a challenge at times to be there, knowing what he did the last time, but he was determined not to let that get to him. He was trying to prove a point to himself that he wasn’t the same man as before.

Blood rose to his cheeks whenever he saw the cars outside Bobby’s windows or hear anything that resembled the rattling of pills in a bottle. It would take much longer to let that go.

That night after their dinner of take-out food (including some salad and healthy garbage for Sam, who was suddenly back into his health for the first time since he graduated college), they sat around the old box TV and watched random sitcoms and the evening news.

Dean had awkwardly skimmed a little too fast past the channel playing the show about the man who cooked meth, which sent some embarrassment silently to all men. Sam cringed when they’d stop on a show that happened to have scenes of men being abused as a joke—the typical moment of the petite wife insulting the burly husband or smacking him around with a laugh track to make it all seem okay.

But Sam was better now; Sam was over what Ruby did. Sam spent a month in one-on-one therapy being told over and over that it wasn’t his fault and men can be hurt, too. Sam was fine, Sam didn’t care.

Sam was beginning to disassociate again.

The man stared ahead, feeling like he was beginning to float away. It was too close to how he felt when he was high, it was too similar to when he’d get hit in the head and feel confused, it was too much—

He thought he would be perfectly okay after rehab. Sam tucked his bangs behind his ear, feeling his godfather and brothers’ gazes burning into his skin. They were staring, they could tell something was wrong, they knew he wasn’t okay, they knew he was fucked up!

“Sammy, you feeling alright?” Dean asked tentatively.

Sam turned his head in his brother’s direction and nodded quickly, refusing to meet his gaze. It was all getting to him and he rushed forward, mumbling that he needed some fresh air. He didn’t stop until he was on the porch, outside in the cool night air.

The change in location helped a touch but he still felt the panic and the thoughts of what the hell he would say when he came back or what they would accuse him of. He was relieved, however, that no one followed him. At least they still had that much trust in him.

* * *

Doctor Castiel was startled by the buzzing of his phone. He had been relaxing at home, watching the news, when the device interrupted his thoughts. The caller ID held his latest patient’s name and he was both surprised to be called on the day of release, and glad the stubborn man actually thought to call.

“Samuel?” He answered.

“ _H-Hey, Cas_ ,” Sam’s voice quivered and Castiel feared he had fallen back into drugs at record speed.

“What’s wrong?”

“ _I just—sorry, it’s stupid_.”

“Sam, you can talk to me. That’s why you have my number. Now what’s gotten you so worked up?”

There was a pause. “ _I just… I was with Dean—my brother—and my godfather and we were watching TV, and I was doing so good all day but now I’m just… I…_ ”

“Use your words, Sam. What are you feeling?”

* * *

The call ended with a reminder from Castiel that they would be able to talk more during their new weekly counseling sessions. He even suggested Sam bring Dean so he can talk it out in a ‘safe’ environment, but Sam wasn’t so sure he was ready for that. He wanted Dean to think he was strong now, not the same needy little brother he’d always been.

Sam returned to the living area twenty minutes later to find Dean and Bobby were still on the couch and watching television. He was greeted with a nod and a hand gesture to sit back down.

“Sorry, had to call Castiel.” he mumbled, figuring the truth didn’t hurt. He might as well work on those small building blocks of trust.

Dean just patted his leg. “Good talk?”

“Yeah,” Sam replied slowly. “All good.”

There was still some tension, possibly only felt by Sam, but he did feel considerably better. He was in the right headspace again and he was with his family like he was meant to be. And now he understood he wouldn’t be able to just rush into being like he was when he was twenty-two and still innocent to what his life had turned into.

Castiel said he would be okay. Just don’t rush it. He’ll be okay in time.

Of course, he didn’t know if he felt better or horribly worse when their show ended and transitioned into the news—which began with their big story of the night, the arrest of a drug dealer who was believed to be a major part of their city’s recent rising crime rate.

His blood did run cold when he saw a candid photo shown across the screen of The House while the news anchor read, “Fergus Crowley has been arrested today after an anonymous tip led police to raid his house. Police took Crowley, along with several other individuals, to the local sheriff department for questioning…”

Sam gulped. “So... How have you guys been?”


	14. Chapter 14

That night was uncomfortable. Dean had roughly pulled Bobby aside with blind certainty that _the most notorious drug lord in their area_ hadn’t just got caught. Not with Sam’s recent leave from rehab and with the way Bobby had been keeping Dean busy at work and been watching the man like a hawk for the past month.

_No_. Dean knew Bobby was somehow behind this.

Sam was left alone on the dusty couch in front of the next news story while Dean had a word with their godfather. He was left with nothing to do but try to focus on anything but the knowledge that the man he used to meet up with weekly with Ruby was now done.

And Sam knew how fucked they were if Crowley were to be released. Crowley was a strong man.

In the meantime he was counting his breaths, trying to remember what Doctor Castiel told him about breathing in his nose and out his mouth. It wasn’t something he should be having a panic attack over, was it? He was safe, wasn’t it?

Unless Crowley got out.

But he won’t!

_But he might._

Sam leaned forward, elbows on his knees, clammy hands holding his face as he tried to hide from the world and get over his anxiety before Bobby and Dean returned to the room. The sounds of the TV in front of him seemed muddled and he didn’t hear anything but the frantic beating of his heart and the demons in his brain screaming he would be dead if Crowley was released for any reason, for any period of time.

Because it was no coincidence Crowley gets caught after _his_ run in. Crowley would know, he always knows, and if he’s in jail for the rest of time he’d find a way to send someone to Sam—maybe even Ruby.

Images of Ruby slinking through his bedroom door with a bottle of Oxy and a loaded gun popped into his head. The reoccurring fear that she would be there to beat him down (he still doesn’t have it in him to hit back, to even defend himself).

It took a few hard shakes before he could raise his head up from his thoughts to see his worried brother was already back in the room, one hand on his shoulder, eyes trained on his baby brother’s face.

“Sammy, Sammy, _calm down_ ,” Dean whispered hoarsely. He had been trying to snap Sam out of his episode before his brother felt the weight of his hand on his arm. Sam nodded shakily and averted his eyes down and to the side, not wanting to look anyone in the eye. He became aware of Bobby’s presence in the room, silently observing.

Sam resumed his attempt at steady breathing, motivated further by Dean taking a seat beside him and breaking his macho façade to gently rub Sam’s arm and back in gentle motions. Dean didn’t like how fast Sam’s heart beat against his skin but chose not to comment and worsen whatever Sam was going through.

“He’ll kill m-me,” Sam stuttered, finally finding the nerve to speak.

Dean was taken aback by the notion and sent a quick glare to Bobby, as if to blame the man for Sam’s panicked response to finding out he was _safe_ from his dealer.

“He’s never seeing you again,” Dean replied, careful not to raise his voice or sound the slightest bit mad. Sam was fragile even after rehab and the withdrawal. “You’re _safe_ , Sammy. He wouldn’t bother going for you, anyway,” he tried to reason. “You were just a customer, right? He can’t go after all his customers, he was pretty huge here.”

The idea should have soothed Sam but he failed to see the positive side. The irrational paranoia continued to claw at his chest.

It was jarring to see the change in his little brother. Dean was so used to the bitter taste Sam left him with when he was high and hated Dean for locking him away to detox. The way Sam had been, for however short of time it may have been, left such a distinct impact that seeing Sam act like he used to was odd. Sam was back to talking and being the more-emotional brother.

This wasn’t Sam from the breakup or Sam from the detox. This was Sam from the hospital bed, crying in regret.

“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean said, sucking it up and leaning forward to encompass Sam in a hug. He was only a little surprised when his brother reciprocated and leaned into the embrace, allowing himself to be comforted.

* * *

The next morning brought Dean to near panic when he called for Sam and didn’t find him in any of the rooms of Bobby’s house. He was ready to jump in the Impala and start a city-wide search when he saw Sam jogging past the kitchen window and slow down through the door. He was covered in sweat, hair sticking to his forehead and noticeably longer than Dean remembered.

“Hey,” Sam said, voice labored with catching his breath. He reached a hand down to feel his pulse and Dean watched with a brow raised.

“The hell?”

“Jogging is good for you,” Sam said nonchalantly, like the past year never happened. This was college-Sam.

“Why?”

Sam rolled his eyes and swiped sweat from his face. “Dude, you really should have paid attention in high school. I don’t have time to explain—”

“No,” Dean interrupted, stepping forward. “I mean, why are you out running? You haven’t done that since, like, you graduated Stanford.”

“I like exercise,” Sam started as he walked by Dean, ready to shower and get all the grime off his skin. “It makes me feel… _clean_.”

Dean didn’t even have time to awkwardly mumble when Sam said, “Oh, and I have therapy later today. Cas thinks it’d be a good idea for me to ask you to come so we can work things out together.”

Dean sputtered. “Since when do you go to therapy?”

“Since I nearly killed myself in a stolen car, high on pills, on my way to assault some kid? Look, Dean, it’s okay if you don’t want to go, I didn’t think you’d want to. I just need to go. It’s kind of important for me.”

Dean made an offended face and scoffed. “You underestimate me, baby brother. I would _love_ to go to your therapy thing. Maybe we can work out why you get so mad when I call you Sammy.”

Sam was ready to retort, his eyes narrowed, but he bit his cheek and forced a smile. “I don’t get mad.”

“You’re mad right now.”

“Not as mad as you are when I say you’re short.”

Dean inhaled sharply. “I’m six-two, you freaking giant!”

Sam grinned and clicked his tongue like a disappointed school teacher. “I bet the doc will even know you’re compensating with the Impala.”

“THERE’S NOTHING TO COMPENSATE FOR, I’M HUNG LIKE A HORSE, YOU LITTLE—”

The younger brother had already laughed himself into the next room, leaving a red-faced and frustrated Dean.

* * *

Dean shifted uncomfortably in his seat in the waiting room of the building Sam said the therapy was in. It looked more like a dentist office to him, and he didn’t appreciate the sniffling kid and his mom tapping her ridiculously pointed heel on the tiled floors.

Sam wasn’t bothered at all, casually flipping through some boring healthy-living magazine as he waited for his appointment to begin. Dean didn’t like this place, the weird stains on the ceiling, or the proximity of the cars that were parked around his baby in the lot outside.

They sat silently as other people were called through the wooden door beside the secretary’s window. Finally, ten minutes past Sam’s appointment was scheduled for, a man with dark hair opened the door. His eyes stopped on Sam as he called out, “Samuel Winchester?”

Sam smiled tightly as he stood up and motioned with his good hand for Dean to come with him. They shuffled through the open door and down a narrow hall to an opened doorway. Dean internally mocked all the weird hanging art pieces that were too abstract for his tastes.

Inside the room the brothers sat on a black leather couch and waited for Doctor Castiel to close the door and pick up some papers from his desk across from them. He sat on his rolling chair and glanced at the papers, not truly needing them.

“Hello, Sam. And you’re Dean, if I remember correctly? And I always do.”

Dean stared at the man and kept himself from making any smartass comments… yet. “Yeah. I’m Sammy’s big brother.”

“I’m glad you made it,” Castiel said with a genuine smile. “I’d like to start this first session with an easy question; how are you feeling today, Sam?”

Sam politely said, “I’m good. A lot better than last month, for sure.”

“That’s good. How have you been handling the transition back into the world?”

 Dean looked expectantly at his brother, wondering if he’d mention the breakdown sooner or later.

“It’s been rough, honestly. Dean and Bobby are helping a lot.”

Castiel nodded and wrote something down on a clipboard he had ready at the desk. “Your godfather?” He verified.

Sam nodded. “I stayed at Bobby’s last night.”

“But he’s coming back to live with me,” Dean interjected. “When he’s, uh, ready,” he awkwardly added.

Castiel nodded again. “You said things were rough to begin with. What has caused you trouble since you left the rehabilitation center?”

It was clear Sam was hesitant to answer, eyes darted to the side and stalling to answer. So, Dean figured, _fuck it_. He was here to help.

“We saw the news last night. His old dealer was arrested.”

Castiel’s face was devoid of emotion. “How did that make you feel, Sam? What do you think of this?”

Sam exhaled and bit his lip. “I… don’t know.”

“Think, Sam. Try to gather your thoughts.”

Sam’s eyebrows furrowed and he worried his bottom lip. He wanted to get it out there so Castiel could help him like he always had, but he didn’t want to just list how he’d already fucked up. It was hard to admit and he turned to Dean, puppy eyes in full view.

It didn’t take Dean but a moment to hear the silent message.

“Sam didn’t take it so well,” Dean supplied, careful with his wording to spare his brother’s feelings. “He freaked out when me and Bobby left the room. He was hyperventilating or somethin’ and didn’t hear me the first few times I tried to say something to him.”

Heat rose to Sam’s cheeks. He didn’t know he was that far gone.

“And when he could talk again, he said the Crowley guy would kill him.”

Castiel’s eyes softened and he redirected his attention to Sam. “Why do you think he’ll try to hurt you, Sam?”

“Because…” Sam shot a look to Dean, wanting some kind of sign of what to say, as if Dean knew what his worries were the night before. Sam thought Bobby or Dean had something to do with the arrest but never voiced the concern while also never receiving any proof. He didn’t want to say he thought his family was behind it, it sounded almost criminal—it could be criminal, he had no idea how they’d get Crowley caught. For all he knew they could have wire-tapped the man’s house or broken in.

He chose the vaguest way to explain. “Because Ruby worked with him… and I stayed loyal until I was in the hospital. He might… uh, think that… that I did something to get him caught. He was arrested a month after the accident and the rehab and, and, he might think I ratted him out or something.”

All of which was another fear of his, his family involved or not.

It sent a pang of guilt into Dean to hear his brother talk like that, still so scared and paranoid. Ruby was gone but it would be a while before Sam could feel normal or even walk outside alone without the constant fear of Crowley.

The session went on for another forty minutes and it was eye-opening for Dean to hear exactly how Sam felt. He didn’t know about the anxiety and panic attacks and the nightmares that were only just going away. He had no idea how much Sam was hurting, especially when he was hard on his brother.

Before they left Castiel handed them both packets of paper filled with information he felt they both could utilize. Dean didn’t bother to see what Sam was handed, he assumed it was much like what he received. Back at Bobby’s he finally flipped through it and felt the same guilt return when he saw the bolded titles. He had a stack of papers on helping abused loved ones, helping recovering addicts, and general information on what Sam would be going through.

He couldn’t wait for the day when he didn’t have to look out for things that trigger his brother. Dean felt terrible when he realized he’d already violated two of Sam’s triggers when he saw the way Sam paled at Bobby passing Dean a beer, then the way Sam flinched when said beer was dropped on the table from slippery hands.

“Ruby liked to drink,” Sam had quietly explained when Dean asked if he was okay. Sam knew it was a _does-this-scare-you_ after-therapy type question. “She liked to break things.”

That night Sam slept better, feeling somewhat comforted by Bobby’s hospitality and Dean caring enough to accompany him to therapy and even paying attention to what Castiel said.

Dean had nightmares of his baby brother crying out mutely against a monster that smelled of booze.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to my beta for being the fastest beta in the west.

It was all too tempting for Dean to sit in his kitchen, jaw clenched, and another beer before him to drink while he ignored the world. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? All Dean had wanted to do since Sammy got back from rehab was to make him feel okay again and get back to his life, which was stressful enough as it was. He was dodging bullets here—checking in on Sam to see if something happened to upset him, counting pills in the medicine cabinet, checking that Sam wasn’t terrified at a loud noise.

And the younger man was doing well. It wasn’t much of a surprise when Sam could do anything he put his mind to, including that full ride scholarship to Stanford. And he did ask for rehab himself, which Dean had to remind himself of constantly. _Sam wanted to change, Sam won’t throw his hard work away_.

It was so tiring to keep an eye out for Sam when he was still building that trust back. It wasn’t in Dean’s nature to be talkative about problems or to be mindful of his wording, but Castiel told him several times that he needed to try for his brother’s sake.

It was always easiest to wind down and relax at home once he got situated and had a few beers in him. Every beer he uncapped, however, gave him this guilty silent stare. All Dean could think of, this twisting feeling in his gut unending was of the way Sam stopped drinking. The way Sam tried to subtly turn away when he saw a beer taken from the fridge. The way Sam admitted to alcohol being a negative thing for him while he recovered.

It reminded Dean of how he used to get scared as a kid when his father got too rowdy with his buddies while they watched the game. What was worse was when his father had an argument, hammered, and began to get violent. John was always a violent drunk and Dean knew he inherited a good fraction of that.

The guilt bubbled up in his gut and Dean nudged his beer away with the back of his hand. Sam used to drink, but did it scare him when Dean did?

Was Dean making Sam feel just as scared and defenseless as Ruby had?

* * *

Sam had moved in with Charlie until he was back on his feet. She was overjoyed at the prospect of a roommate, as her girlfriend had moved out months ago and at the least Sam could make dinner.

There were bi-weekly therapy visits with Castiel that Sam continued. He’d been alternating which loved one he brought with him when he didn’t want to go all alone. Bobby had gone and was surprisingly comforting to sit with while discussing progress with Castiel. The pride in the older man’s voice made Sam’s heart flutter, like he’d finally made up for some of the damage he’d done.

Charlie went with him occasionally if it worked out with her ever-changing schedule. She was his ride until Sam could get himself a car or a bus pass.

Today was a free day for the two-month clean man. He had already cleaned the bathroom, gagging while he removed all the hair from the drain ( _maybe Dean was right about shearing it all off_ ). The sink was spotless with all the bits of dried toothpaste removed. The floors had been bleached and scrubbed. All shampoos had been re-organized with excess soap wiped off.

The kitchen was spotless. The floors were vacuumed. His personal area, which was the fold-out couch with an empty few drawers in the side tables, had been immaculate since he woke.

Every vinyl figurine was dusted, every Star Wars poster was given new tape where the old had peeled, every movie re-alphabetized.

“Well,” Sam sighed, taking a seat on the couch and staring at the small Captain Kirk figurine on the coffee table. “What now? I’m out of ideas here, Kirk.”

There was no reply.

“You’re not very helpful.”

The giant of a man stood up and shook the dust from his hair. Hair that was far too long—it was already to his shoulders! That was the cut-off limit.

“I’ll go get my hair cut!”

There was a childlike excitement about leaving the apartment and still being productive. It would take Sam a little more time before he could just laze around without anxiety, but Castiel believed he was more than capable of overcoming his irrational fear of something bad happening if he did something purely for fun. It was hard for Sam to separate being relaxed from being on drugs, as well as doing nothing (like watching TV) without being berated for it.

Ruby wanted him to be productive. He was too close to his last “task” of testing drugs because she didn’t trust Crowley.

Sam shoved his phone in his pocket, shaking away the bad memories sneaking up on him, and went to tighten his shoelaces. He was going to go outside, get his hair trimmed, and reintegrate with society. It was like college orientation day, his nerves getting to him when he knew better than to be anxious.

Before leaving the small apartment, Sam paused by the door. He whispered his mantra to himself. _“You can do this, you can do this, you can do this.”_

* * *

Sam chose to walk to the small strip mall that held the aging salon he used to get his hair trimmed before he fell into drugs and cutting his hair on his own in fear of wasting money. The storefront was plain and sandwiched between a cupcake shop and one of those stores that seemed to be everywhere that catered to fancy soaps and car air fresheners.

It wasn’t too crowded inside the shop, when Sam peaked in through the large windows by the doors. There didn’t seem to be much of a wait, which alleviated some of his nerves about being in public and clean.

He had to stop a few times on his walk there, reminding himself that he was okay now and no one knew he was impure and tainted. He felt as though every stray eye to land on him saw some dark aura or a neon sign that screamed OXY ADDICT!

And Bobby’s words from a previous session came back to him.

_“Ain’t no one knows what you did, son,” the older man said gently, knowing to be careful with Sam while he was opening up. “And they ain’t gonna know. You’re just like everyone else out there. Can you see some kid on the street and tell me what they did that they regret? You can’t, and they can’t read you either.”_

Sam sighed, ran a hand through his messily long hair, and entered the shop. A warm-smiled younger woman at the counter took his name and put him on the list (first come, first serve style). He thanked her and congratulated himself on being human again.

It was taking longer than he anticipated for his turn. An older woman was the only person he had to wait on to finish, and this lady was one of those dye-and-perm types. He watched her when he was bored with the _Men’s Fitness_ magazine clutched in his sweaty hands. It took the stylist forever to get all the foil on the lady’s hair and use all the weird little chemicals and tools every station had.

His attention quickly moved from the raisin of a woman to the young blonde sitting across from him. When did she enter the salon? He didn’t hear the door! And now he wasn’t alone in the waiting area, forced to either look down at his lap or stare uncomfortably at the woman.

The pretty woman.

Sam bit his lip and shut his eyes to silently scold himself. _No_ , he told himself. _We are not going to act like Dean! This is a business trip! Hair only, no flirting or—_

“Sam Winchester?”

His eyes snapped open and he stared wide-eyed at the blonde beauty. “Uh, yes? I mean… yes?”

The girl chuckled. “Jessica, remember? We had a few classes together at Stanford. I haven’t seen you since graduation!”

The light bulb flicked in his mind and he remembered her: Jessica, the cute blonde from a few of his gen ed classes he had a small crush on before he met Ruby. He was always smiling and willing to share her pencil when he forgot his at the dorm.

They were good pencils, too. With full erasers and unbroken lead!

“What have you been up to?” She broke him from his stupor.

He didn’t know what to say—nothing good had happened; it was just a long series of pathetic turns into dark alleys where someone was waiting to fuck him over. His heart rate picked up and he was ready to give some obvious lie when he heard his named called.

Thank god it was his turn.

“Sorry, I gotta…” he trailed off, giving an awkward and forced smile.

But Jessica didn’t seem to mind. “Why don’t we catch up after? I have some time to kill before work.”

That would be enough time to work out a plan. Sam genuinely smiled back. “I’d love to.”

* * *

“He’s been doing real good, even talked some about John while we were there.”

Dean swallowed down some guilt and nodded at Bobby’s words. “Has he, uh, you know…”

“Talked about you?”

Dean shrugged, afraid of the answer.

Work had ended and Dean was meeting Bobby for a bit at the older man’s home. He needed some time to talk himself, now that he had this underlying guilt in everything he did. He needed to know if he fucked up Sam and Sam sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to tell him—not directly.

Bobby rolled his eyes and scoffed to himself at Dean’s shyness. “Yeah, he has. Some good, some bad. It’s mostly venting, Dean, and the boy needs it. Now what’s got you acting like some scared teenage girl?”

Dean reddened at the comment and fiddled with the hem of his shirt. “It’s nothing, Bobby.”

The older man said nothing, only staring at the younger man.

Dean’s eyes looked at Bobby, waiting to be asked further or pestered for answers. When all he received was the same patient stare, he grew frustrated. “Jesus, fine, Bobby! Stop staring at me like that and I’ll—I’ll—”

“Grow a pair and just tell me what’s got you so quiet?”

Dean huffed and rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

Bobby leaned forward in his seat.

“I just… you know, I don’t want Sam to be scared of me…”

This wasn’t at all what Bobby had expected to hear. He was waiting for some kind of grievance or annoyed commentary about how exhausting it was to look out for Sam. He even thought he’d hear some kind of self-loathing yet spiteful anecdote involving Sam’s addiction and Dean’s own problems dealing with it.

“The signs were there, Bobby, and I didn’t notice any of them! Sam showed up bruised up and what did I do? I yelled at him to stay away from her. That’s what the bitch did—she yelled at Sam to stay away from _me_. He was already messed up when he came back to us and all I did was get mad at him and make him feel worse! Don’t give me that look, Bobby! Sam said it himself when we made him dry out!”

The memory flashed through Dean’s mind.

_“How about when I go to him for help and he just screams at me until I have a panic attack? Yeah, Dean; you did that and you left before you could face it. So try to help all you want, just know I’ll always respond with ‘fuck you.’”_

“We did our best,” Bobby responded, tone heated.

“Our best wasn’t good enough! Sammy is scared _all the time_ , Bobby! Cas said he probably has _situational depression_ , too, but I bet Sammy doesn’t bring that up in your sessions.” Dean paused and took a deep breath while running a shaking hand through his short hair. “Sammy came to me to get away from the shit Ruby did to him and I made him feel like a burden.”

Bobby didn’t know how to respond. When it came to emotional repression, it wasn’t just the Winchesters who excelled at it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, I'm not quite done fucking with Sam yet.


End file.
